One Way Out

by A. A. Dhand

  Harry had ventured deep into the belly of the tunnel and unearthed a bag Ronnie kept for times like these.

  When someone needed to be broken.

  Harry wouldn’t do it here. Looking at Isaac and knowing his background, the tunnel might serve to deepen his resolve.

  No. For this particular task Harry needed to change the game.

  SEVENTEEN

  Two hours since the bomb had gone off and West Yorkshire Assistant Chief Constable Steven Frost had just finished his first full Gold Command meeting. Together he and his opposite number in the Counter-Terrorism Unit, Peter Weetwood, had established five critical areas to focus on.

  Stabilize City Park and contain any ongoing terrorist activity.

  Identify the previously unheard-of terrorist group calling themselves the Patriots.

  Locate the four leaders of so-called Almukhtaroon and get them into safe custody.

  Maintain police presence at as many of the 105 mosques in the city as was possible.

  Increase general police presence to ensure Bradford did not fall into civil unrest.

  ‘I don’t need to remind you all,’ he’d said to the crowded briefing room just before he’d dismissed them, ‘this is as serious as it gets. There is nothing too small to warrant our attention here. Everything is relevant. I want all eyes and ears open. And don’t do anything stupid.’

  The Prime Minister had offered him whatever resources he needed. Officers and patrols from Newcastle to Humberside were currently en route to Bradford. There’d soon be more police here than Frost knew what to do with.

  The wild card was the hostage situation. Frost had thousands of people inside the mosques on lockdown. For now, the worshippers were afraid enough to stay there – uncertain of just what was happening in Bradford. He didn’t think it would be long before that dynamic changed. If the mosques started to empty, the pressing question became whether to enforce the confinement, something only achievable once the added manpower from the north arrived.

  Frost could not be sure of the risks involved. But he felt certain it wouldn’t take much for things to go very wrong. He did not want that happening on his watch. For now, the safest place they could be was inside their mosques. The threat of the supposed second device had not yet been verified.

  The blast in the park had been right next to Britannia House, where the city’s CCTV surveillance was housed. It was currently offline, meaning most of Bradford was unmonitored. Work was frantically under way to restore the network but that might take hours and, as the Patriots had made clear, the clock was ticking.

  Frost knew all about Almukhtaroon. It was hard to forget their leader, the man known formerly as Kade Turner who, on converting to Islam, had taken the name Abu-Nazir. He now enjoyed a cult following – the white jihadi with bright ginger hair and a distinctly blond beard. He certainly made an impression.

  The Home Secretary, Tariq Islam, had tried to prosecute both Nazir and his partner – and second-in-command – Amelia Rose eighteen months before, and suffered a humiliating defeat when the European Court of Justice ruled the UK had violated their human rights. The result had seen support for the Far Right surge.

  The muscle behind the leaders was Fahad-Bin-Azeez, commonly referred to simply as Azeez. He was a former power-lifting champion who’d fled Somalia as a teenager and served time for petty thefts and grievous bodily harm. It was in prison that he had been radicalized by sympathizers of Almukhtaroon. Once released, he had joined the organization, quickly climbing the ranks until he sat alongside Abu-Nazir and Amelia Rose.

  The fourth and newest senior member of the organization was just a kid: Isaac Wolfe. His role had seemingly been to attract a younger audience – angry teenagers, easy to manipulate. Isaac had recently been released from a youth detention centre and had spoken on social media about how his generation had been forgotten by British society. He was the only one with a registered address in the city. It looked like it had been his mum’s place, but she’d died not long before he’d been convicted. The other leaders of Almukhtaroon were listed as NFA – no fixed abode – which made them harder to track down, requiring intelligence. Officers were on their way to Isaac’s home to take him into protective custody. Frost didn’t have much hope they would find him there. His name was all over the news. While Frost was setting up the Gold Command room and delegating roles and priorities, Isaac Wolfe would have had time to escape.

  For all Frost knew about Almukhtaroon, he knew next to nothing about the Patriots or what they were capable of.

  Initial reports from City Park suggested no casualties, which Frost didn’t believe. The blast site covered 4,000 square metres. City Park was nothing more than ash.

  Without the twenty-minute warning to the public, the death toll might have been in the hundreds. Why give the warning? What sort of terrorist wanted to prevent major loss of life?

  Frost played the YouTube video again. The national cyber agency hadn’t yet sent through their analysis. The Patriots were targeting Almukhtaroon to show the rest of the UK that those with obvious animosity towards the country and its Western values would no longer be tolerated – this was extreme Far Right ideology.

  Perhaps it was the inevitable outcome after so many years of terror attacks.

  Frost didn’t like the look of it. A damn slippery slope to total anarchy.

  He saw it clearly. Gold Command had to secure Almukhtaroon before anyone else got to them.

  EIGHTEEN

  Looking out from the front door at Aaron still driving the tractor, Ranjit could not quite believe his grandson was half Muslim.

  His father would be turning in his grave. The man who had called Muslims a virus, who had declared them toxic, a danger to his family and to the world.

  His father, though, had not seen this little boy, this tiny version of Hardeep.

  He pushed the uncomfortable thoughts from his mind and focused on Aaron.

  This had to be done.

  Hardeep had no idea just how difficult he had made life for his father. People in his community had shunned him, even after he had disowned Hardeep. How could a senior member of the Sikh Temple have allowed this to happen? Ranjit had stepped down from the committee. Some said he should have killed Hardeep.

  He thought back to the night Hardeep had told him he was going to marry that wretched girl. There had been a moment of anger, Ranjit had drawn his sword, but Joyti had put herself between father and son.

  Would he have done it?

  He’d asked himself that question every day since.

  And ‘Aaron’. Who were they kidding? A white name for an already confused boy. He would grow older and embrace the Muslim faith. And then what? Aaron would go on to marry a Muslim and the Virdee bloodline would forever be ruined.

  If the elders in India ever found out … it didn’t bear thinking about.

  He stepped from the house, the sunshine warming his face.

  Ranjit approached Aaron, his hand reaching to scratch his forehead, his turban uncomfortable in the heat.

  Joyti watched from the window, fists clenched, eyes watery. She was only now aware that she might have placed her boy in danger. Ranjit’s demeanour was clear. He had opted to put his turban on, marching out to meet Aaron with his Sikh identity at the forefront.

  She wanted to run outside and protect the boy as she watched Ranjit crouch in front of him so they were both almost level with each other. Aaron stuck out his hand, smiling brightly.

  He had never looked more like Hardeep.

  A tear slid down Joyti’s face, the tension unbearable as she watched her husband staring at Aaron, not saying a word.

  She thought of Harry’s words: Look after my boy, Mum.

  Joyti felt her feet moving but stopped – she wanted to have faith in this moment, in this man.

  She dug her nails into the palms of her hands, breaking the skin.

  ‘Shake his hand, you shake it,’ she hissed, trembling in anger, blinking away tears.

&nb
sp; He didn’t. He got to his feet and walked away, back towards the house, quicker than she had seen him move in a long time.

  Joyti moved too, towards the front door.

  She marched into the hallway, ready to unleash her anger at her husband, but was stopped dead as Ranjit barged past, their shoulders colliding. He wasn’t quick enough that she didn’t see his face. Or the tears sliding down it.

  NINETEEN

  Harry pulled up at an old farmhouse frequented by Ronnie when he needed a softer location to carry out some of his work. There was nothing for miles around, just field after field.

  Perfect.

  A quick sweep of the house confirmed it was empty.

  Checking that the burner phone Tariq had given him was turned off, he went to get Isaac from the car.

  The kid was still unconscious. For how much longer, Harry didn’t know. Tariq said they had injected him with a sedative that usually lasted a couple of hours.

  Harry carried him into the house and laid him down on an old leather couch in the living room.

  He patted the boy down.

  No mobile phone.

  No wallet.

  Nothing hidden under his Islamic robes.

  Harry took in more details about the boy. He was extremely fair for an Asian kid, his skin was light and his dark hair had a red tint to it. Harry wondered if one of his parents might have been white. He checked Isaac’s hands, feeling his pulse again. Harry frowned at the thumb on the kid’s right hand, markedly thinner than his other. He’d seen this before.

  What he really needed was robust intel on the boy and the only place to get that was Isaac’s home, an address Tariq had given him.

  Police would be there by now, tearing the house to pieces.

  Removing his phone, Harry saw several missed calls, all from his boss, Detective Superintendent Clare Conway, but she didn’t pick up when he called her back.

  16.15.

  Waiting around here for Isaac to wake up without a plan was futile.

  Harry secured the boy’s feet to the base of the couch using handcuffs, ensured his hands were still tightly bound and put a crude gag around his mouth.

  The only thing that gave him a fighting chance was information. And the only place he was going to get that was at Isaac’s.

  TWENTY

  Prayers filtered through the Mehraj mosque’s PA system as Saima made her way towards the basement. Full of aid boxes and constantly in a state of disorder, it was the obvious place to hide a bomb.

  Saima had to take her mind off Aaron, left in the care of grandparents he barely knew.

  She whispered for God to give her boy strength.

  It wasn’t just Aaron she was thinking of. Her mother’s voice would not leave her mind.

  Hellfire.

  Marrying Harry had been bad. But the year before she had done something much worse.

  Her life had been on the line.

  She knew she’d had no choice. Saima had not forgiven herself for taking a man’s life. And Harry … Ronnie … all the dark things they did, surely …

  Was this the inevitable damnation for their sins?

  She whispered another prayer and forced her mind to focus. She could do nothing with those thoughts now.

  For the first time, all the mosques in Bradford were united. Sunni? Shia? Ahmadi? It didn’t matter. It was only temporary, Saima knew that.

  Once the bomb was located, what then?

  Saima had a child who needed her – could she really put the solidarity of her faith before that? She knew she wouldn’t be the only one having these thoughts.

  The Muslim community spoke proudly of what it saw as its collective responsibility to care for one another. What better way to test that resolve?

  She walked down a narrow corridor and checked her phone.

  Nothing from Harry.

  She wanted to try Joyti again but resisted. Hearing Aaron’s voice would send her over the edge.

  Saima arrived at a large set of automatic doors. They opened for her and she entered. Seeing the large wooden crates marked Clothes, Dried fruits, Water and Canned goods she was reminded of an article in the local Telegraph & Argus about how the council was also using some of the space for its own aid programme, lauded as a cross-working collaboration between the Muslim community and the wider population of Bradford.

  Hearing voices, she stopped. Men were checking the boxes one by one. Many crates had been opened, with two teams of men taking responsibility for specific areas.

  From the shadows, she watched as another was opened. A man was using a tool to remove what she assumed were metal clips, judging by the noise they made. It took a few minutes before several men carefully pulled the wooden cover free.

  It was bottled water. They spent a few minutes inspecting it thoroughly, then moved on to the next.

  Saima wanted to help but she knew these men would not take kindly to a woman interrupting their work. She was looking for something she could do when she heard a change in the other team’s voices. She heard gasps and one of the men cursed.

  Inside a mosque?

  Their voices turned to whispers, then prayers.

  She stepped out from the shadows, the men unaware she was there, creeping up behind them, peering into the container.

  For a moment, she didn’t know what had caused the commotion.

  Wires.

  Dozens of cylindrical structures.

  Then it hit her.

  ‘God help us,’ she whispered.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Harry arrived outside Isaac Wolfe’s home, a small terraced house on a side street not far from a large amusement park in Thornbury, and found it sealed off by a yellow police cordon, with two armed officers at the front door and uniformed constables on the street. He had taken his work laptop from the boot and checked to see if there was any pertinent information detailed for Isaac.

  Harry imagined the CTU detectives inside. They wouldn’t be searching the place thoroughly, more of a once-over. Technically, this was a ‘locate and protect’ exercise. Isaac hadn’t broken any laws.

  Unless, that is, CTU thought Almukhtaroon were complicit in an ongoing terrorist plot. It wasn’t impossible. At any given moment, the Counter-Terrorism Unit was dealing with thousands of operations.

  Harry called his boss. DS Clare Conway answered. Judging from the noise in the background, she was at Gold Command. Phones rang, voices were raised, doors slammed.

  ‘Harry? Where are you? Are you OK?’

  He told her about his day, everything but his meeting with Tariq.

  ‘Jesus, Harry, I was hoping to call you in but I can’t have you working after that. You’re sure you’re not in shock?’

  Her concern sounded genuine, but he heard the tinge of disappointment that she was a member of her team down.

  ‘I’m outside Isaac Wolfe’s house, Clare.’

  ‘What? Harry, I don’t expect you to be operational – not after what you’ve been through this morning. Not with Saima in one of the mosques. You’re compromised.’

  ‘Less sympathy, more focus, Clare. I’ll let you know if it gets too much,’ he replied flatly.

  He heard her sigh in relief.

  Harry thought she might have asked how he knew of the address – another reason he had used his laptop to log on. But she didn’t.

  ‘What has Frost tasked us with?’ asked Harry.

  ‘It’s fluid, Harry. Right now it’s finding the four leaders of Almukhtaroon and seeing if there’s anything connecting them to the Patriots.’

  Perfect.

  ‘Who’s in charge inside the house?’ he said, opening the driver’s door.

  ‘DS Taylor, CTU.’

  ‘Veronica Taylor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Got it. We were in the academy together. I’m going to assist, Clare. See if there’s anything of interest.’

  There were photos everywhere of Isaac and a woman Harry assumed to be his mother.

  No sign of a f
ather.

  The place should have felt like a home but it was a mess. Dust swirling in the wake of the detectives, clothes and dishes everywhere and, in the kitchen, a bin overflowing with empty McDonald’s milkshake cups. The sweet smell lingered.

  Harry moved through the house with authority. Unlike the other officers, Harry was looking for something very specific – a weakness.

  Upstairs, Isaac’s bedroom was a typical teenager’s room, full of clutter and disorder that was clearly there even before the detective started rooting through everything. All over the walls were vibrant posters of superheroes – the Hulk, Superman and Judge Dredd.

  DS Taylor handed Harry some paperwork. ‘Get up to speed,’ she said, not unkindly. The state of the house suddenly made sense. The batch of papers Harry was looking at included a death certificate. Isaac’s mother had died from breast cancer two years ago.

  Harry did the maths. Isaac had been taken into custody and placed in a youth detention centre two months after his mother’s passing.

  ‘Christ,’ he called out as he leafed through the remaining papers. ‘This kid got straight A* at GCSEs. He did four A levels, getting top marks. Puts him what? Highest one per cent of the country?’

  DS Taylor grimaced at him.

  ‘The house is clear, Harry. There’s nothing here to help us find him. He could have gone anywhere.’ She ran her hands through her hair. ‘This is a nightmare.’

  With resources at breaking point, she discharged the firearms officers, leaving two uniformed constables protecting the cordon.

  ‘SOCOs are on their way from Wakefield but they’ll be another hour. All of ours are out in City Park.’ DS Taylor looked tired already. Harry could sympathize.

  ‘I’m just going to look around, get a feel for all this. See you back at base.’

  She nodded and took two steps towards the door before she turned back to him. ‘Everything all right, Harry?’

  Harry smiled at her. ‘Fine. I was in City Park earlier – taking a while to shake it off.’