State of Fear

by Tim Ayliffe

  ‘Barely,’ Dorset said. ‘She just tried to kill a lot of innocent people.’

  ‘Yeah, only she didn’t. Did she?’ Bailey had decided that Dorset was a shithead. ‘And like I said, she’s just a kid.’

  Ronnie cleared his throat and tapped his fingers on the table, like he was trying to break the rhythm of the conversation that was bouncing from one side of the room to the other. ‘What do you need from us, Ann?’

  ‘C’mon, Ronnie, you know why you’re here.’

  Bailey took another sip of his water. He’d said his piece and now he was happy for Ronnie to do the talking.

  ‘Not much has changed with you, has it?’ Pritchard laughed through her nose, adjusting her glasses. ‘Do we have a problem?’

  ‘Your country. Your rules,’ Ronnie said. ‘I’ll tell you when I have a problem.’

  ‘I know you will.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘No games, Ronnie.’ Pritchard dropped the smile. ‘This is too sensitive, too dangerous.’

  ‘Here’s what we know – the facts,’ Ronnie said. ‘An eighteen-year-old girl carries a bomb onto a bus. You knew she was here. You knew who she’d been spending time with. You missed it. The only reason why that bus didn’t go bang on London Bridge is because of the fella sitting next to me – who wouldn’t know half the shit we know – no offence, bubba.’

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘Anyhow, as fuck-ups go,’ Ronnie kept at them, ‘this one’s up there.’

  ‘Hang on a minute!’ Dorset’s face had turned the colour of beetroot. ‘We know we missed a few things here.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘That’s enough, Ronnie,’ Pritchard said. ‘This isn’t helping anyone.’

  Bailey shifted uncomfortably in his chair, trying to remove his leather jacket. Each movement was causing the bandage to dig into his burn. ‘How long’s this going to take?’

  ‘We need to come to an agreement about Mustafa al-Baghdadi,’ Pritchard said. ‘We need to coordinate.’

  ‘Any idea how he got in the country?’ Ronnie said.

  Bailey could see the anger in Pritchard’s eyes. ‘I don’t see the point in walking you through our intelligence failures because, as you know, we’re not alone. You Americans have had your fair share. We dodged a bullet today. We made a big mistake. But this isn’t over, you and I both know that.’

  Pritchard turned her eyes on Bailey, pointing at him with her index finger. ‘We agree with the assessment that Mustafa al-Baghdadi’s in London. And right now, you’re the best chance we have of finding him.’

  ‘Because of the phone calls?’ Bailey said. ‘You think he’s going to call me again?’

  ‘We don’t know anything for sure. You’ll need to stay in London until we’ve got him. We can’t let you go home with a threat like this hanging over our country.’

  Bailey looked at Ronnie, hoping that he would tell these guys to get lost, that there was a time limit on this. That in a few days Ronnie would have a special CIA plane on the tarmac at Heathrow waiting to shuttle Bailey out of the United Kingdom and back to Australia. But he could tell that Ronnie had an agenda here too. Mustafa was the world’s most wanted terrorist. The Americans were desperate to catch or kill him too. Ronnie might be Bailey’s friend but that hadn’t stopped him using him before. Dangling him like bait. Bailey felt like he was staring at a bunch of fishermen and he didn’t like it.

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in!’ Pritchard called out without getting out of her chair.

  A man’s head appeared through the door. ‘Ma’am, I’ve got Commander Daniels on the line. Says it’s urgent.’

  Ann gestured for the man to come in and hand her the phone.

  ‘Robert,’ she said.

  She spent the next thirty seconds listening into the receiver before, eventually, she handed the phone back to the guy who had brought it in and waited for him to leave.

  ‘Anything you’d like to share with us?’ Ronnie said.

  ‘The second code. The Met’s Counter Terrorism Command has been working with our Australian counterparts on it.’

  ‘And?’ Bailey said, knowing that she was talking about Dexter’s team.

  ‘The target was Sydney Harbour Bridge,’ Pritchard said. ‘Some bus route called a B-Line, or something. The girls had timed their attacks to happen at the same time at opposite sides of the world. But, as you know, after her brother was found, Sara Haneef had altered her plan to hit Martin Place instead. And then, of course, she was arrested too.’

  Bailey grabbed his notepad from his pocket, thumbing through the pages to find where he’d scribbled the codes. He found it.

  BLHB7152004

  The B-Line was a two-storey bus that left the city packed each evening to ferry commuters up to the northern beaches. Ten stops in thirty kilometres. A lot of people would have died.

  Two iconic bridges. Two devastating attacks. One timed to go off during London’s early morning rush hour, the other at exactly the same moment at 7.15 pm on the Sydney Harbour Bridge at the tail end of the day, and the start of prime time on television.

  ‘The Australians are coming to London,’ Pritchard added. ‘To assist with the investigation and the questioning of Ayesha Haneef.’

  Bailey wondered if that meant Dexter, but he didn’t ask. He’d find out soon enough. ‘I reckon we’re done here.’

  The sound of voices was building in the corridor. The ten minutes that Pritchard had given her staff was up.

  ‘Okay.’ Pritchard stood up, signalling that the meeting was over. ‘You obviously need some medical attention and some rest. Big day.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘A car will take you to your hotel,’ she said. ‘A doctor will look at you there.’

  Ronnie was already on his feet with Bailey’s jacket in his hand.

  It took Bailey a bit longer to stand up, even though his mind was already out the door.

  CHAPTER 49

  Six days and nothing. No phone calls. No messages. No proclamations or rallying cries on social media. Nothing.

  Mustafa al-Baghdadi had gone quiet.

  If Mustafa was in London, then he wasn’t about to risk blowing his whereabouts by making another phone call to Bailey.

  Gerald had been calling Bailey at both ends of the day, chasing updates about the hunt for Mustafa and whether or not Ayesha Haneef was talking. The doctors were keeping Gerald in hospital for another week and it was driving him bonkers. The two men had a lot to talk about.

  Top of the list was their jobs at The Journal. Gerald and Bailey had made their decisions. They were getting out.

  The Journal’s lawyers hadn’t even tried to talk them out of it. They’d obviously need to stage-manage the departure of the editor, but they just required a signature from Bailey. His redundancy payout was big, although it wasn’t about the money. Social media had poisoned the fourth estate. News wasn’t news anymore. Whatever it had become, it had to be delivered in a hurry. It had to be sensational. Right or wrong, it didn’t matter. Facts weren’t being checked anymore. The news business was broken and no one seemed to know how to fix it.

  And without Gerald running the shop, leaving was a no-brainer.

  Dexter had been in London for four days and she was staying in a hotel up the river on the other side of Scotland Yard. She’d been so busy that Bailey had barely spoken to her. The only times they’d seen each other was in the so-called ‘war room’ at Thames House, where MI5, the Metropolitan Police and Dexter’s team were working together to find Mustafa al-Baghdadi and stop any other acts of terrorism.

  As an Australian citizen, Dexter was also leading the interrogation of Ayesha Haneef.

  ‘How’s she doing?’

  Bailey had cornered Dexter at Thames House. He knew that Ayesha was in a world of trouble, but he wanted to know that she was all right.

  ‘She’s okay,’ Dexter had said. ‘The Brits are in no rush to lay charges. Right now, I’m just bui
lding trust, hoping she might be able to tell us something that will lead us to Mustafa al-Baghdadi.’

  ‘So she’s talking?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a deal on the table that’ll reduce her jail time, so she’s got a reason.’

  Their conversation had been interrupted and everything else that Bailey had learned about Ayesha had been gleaned from the daily briefings that Dexter had been giving the ‘war room’.

  Ayesha had told Dexter that she had been instructed by the Islamic Nation group to carry out the attack on London Bridge and she gave up the address of the house in Crouch End where two men with English accents had given her the backpack with the bomb in it. That house had been promptly raided by British police and, not surprisingly, found to be empty.

  Dexter had also painted a picture of Ayesha and her cousin, Sara, as two girls who’d used to listen to Coldplay and watch Star Wars movies. Their lives had changed when they started attending Hassan Saleh’s prayer group at Wiley Park, where he’d told them stories about America’s silent war on Islam and showed them videos of US soldiers urinating on dead bodies in Afghanistan and torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Within six months, Sara and Ayesha had both been brainwashed and radicalised. After Ayesha had moved to London, Saleh had sent her to the Ripple Road mosque in East London to meet Umar Masood, another recruiter for the Islamic Nation group.

  For Bailey, being stuck at Thames House was tedious. But he had been given access to a flow of information that an investigative reporter could only dream about.

  The New South Wales Police had laid formal terrorism charges against Sara Haneef. Along with a raft of terror-related offences, the Salma brothers, Hassan Saleh and Bilal Suleman had been charged with the attempted murders of Gerald Summers and Karen Copeland, the policewoman Sammy Raymond had slashed in the shoulder with a knife. And they’d also been pinged for the bomb that had blown up Bailey’s car and the kidnapping of Tariq Haneef.

  Tariq was recovering well in hospital and he was also talking to police. The poor kid had seen some messages – exchanges between Sara and Ayesha – on his phone. He’d wanted to confront Sara at one of Hassan Saleh’s prayer group sessions. When his sister hadn’t turned up, Tariq had made the mistake of confiding in Hassan Saleh about his concerns, thinking that the religious preacher might help him – talk some sense into his sister – only to find himself being hoodwinked and thrown into the back of a van by the Salma brothers.

  Bailey had called Omar to check on him after everything that had happened. But his old driver from Baghdad was like an empty shell on the other end of the line, with Bailey’s questions met by long, echoey silences. The phone call had ended with Omar telling Bailey that it would be best if he never called him again. Bailey had tried to reassure him that life would get better again, but he knew it was a lie. Omar would always be the father and uncle of the girls who’d tried to blow up buses.

  When Bailey wasn’t at Thames House sharing everything he knew about Mustafa al-Baghdadi, he was sitting in his hotel room. Tony Dorset didn’t want him going out unless it was absolutely necessary. When he did leave his hotel room, he was stalked by British agents. After Patricia Jones had been killed at St James’s Square, and the near-miss on London Bridge, British authorities couldn’t afford any more mistakes. Armed police were everywhere and the British Army had been called in to guard the government buildings around Westminster and, of course, Buckingham Palace.

  Ronnie was off somewhere being Ronnie. Even though he was sleeping in the hotel room next door, Bailey had barely seen him.

  Bailey was starting to lose the plot.

  There weren’t any black cabs waiting in the turning circle at the DoubleTree when Bailey stepped outside, so he thought he’d chance it on the street.

  While he was waiting, he dug out his phone from his pocket. He owed someone a phone call and it’d been preying on his mind.

  She answered after two rings.

  ‘Annie, it’s Bailey.’

  ‘Hello, stranger.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that. A bit going on here.’

  She went quiet on the other end of the phone, probably waiting for Bailey to explain what he meant.

  ‘Where’s here?’ she said, eventually.

  ‘London.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Bailey thought about giving her a detailed answer but he didn’t know where to begin.

  ‘I’m good. Considering.’

  ‘Considering what?’ She sounded confused. ‘What are you doing in London?’

  He had to tell her something. ‘I’m helping British authorities with a terrorism investigation.’

  Annie knew Bailey well enough to know what had happened to him in Iraq. His links to Mustafa al-Baghdadi.

  ‘What about the drink?’

  ‘Haven’t touched it here.’ He needed to tell her the truth, especially after she’d come clean with him about her recent dance with her vodka devil. ‘Had a slip-up in Sydney. Woke up hating myself. I’m good now.’

  ‘You sure?’

  He wanted to change the subject. ‘How about you?’

  ‘I’m fine, Bailey. But I’m worried about you.’

  Annie was a smart woman. She’d obviously been reading the papers and joining the dots.

  ‘Mr Bailey! Mr Bailey!’

  A young bloke in a suit was calling out to Bailey. He was about twenty metres away along Millbank.

  ‘Annie, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you when I’m back in Sydney.’

  ‘Make sure you do.’

  Bailey hung up just as the young man caught up to him, puffing like he’d just finished a marathon.

  ‘Mr Bailey, where’re you going?’

  ‘I’m heading out for a while, mate,’ Bailey said, holding out an arm towards the street.

  ‘You can’t do that, not without telling us. You know the arrangement.’

  Bailey stopped walking. ‘It’s Ben, right?’ He remembered him from the day they’d landed at Heathrow.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘Look, Ben . . . I’m going nuts in there. I need some fresh air. I need to stare at something other than the walls of a conference room or that shoebox I’m living in.’

  ‘Dorset says you can’t go anywhere alone.’

  ‘Yeah, well. Dorset’s not here, is he?’

  ‘C’mon, Mr Bailey, I’m just doing my job here.’

  A black car skidded to a stop on the road beside them, interrupting their conversation. Dexter was behind the wheel. She flicked on her hazard lights, opening the door.

  ‘Off for a walk?’ she said, stepping onto the footpath.

  ‘Something like that,’ Bailey said. ‘Checking up on me now too, are we?’

  Dexter turned to Ben. ‘Give us a minute, would you?’

  She waited for Ben to walk out of earshot before she started. ‘Bailey, this has got to stop.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Dexter shook her head, making a puffing noise in her nose. ‘Don’t be a prick, John. You know exactly what I’m talking about. The cold shoulder. Other than quizzing me about Ayesha, you’ve barely even acknowledged we’re in the same room when I’ve seen you at MI5.’

  ‘You’ve been busy.’

  ‘Don’t be coy.’

  ‘Yeah, well . . . what’s happened has happened.’

  Bailey had wanted to repair the damage that had been done to their relationship, but there was something blocking the way. He was still pissed at her for withholding information from him when he’d thought that they’d had an understanding. More than an understanding. A deal. And he didn’t like feeling used.

  ‘Bailey, I’m a police officer. With a job to do, rules to follow.’ It was like she’d been reading his mind. ‘For Christ’s sake, I’m the head of the bloody Joint Counter Terrorism Team.’

  ‘I know how important you are.’

  ‘Fuck you, Bailey.’ She turned towards the river, spinning her neck back around with a squint
. ‘That was a cheap shot.’

  ‘Yeah, well, if it hadn’t been for Tony Dorset, I would never have known about those encrypted messages between Sara and Ayesha. I never would have made it onto that bus.’

  Now, that was a cheap shot. Bailey knew it. He couldn’t pin that on Dexter. It wasn’t right. He could see the humiliation in her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He tried to save himself, reaching out, touching her elbow. ‘Something’s broken here. I don’t know how to fix it.’

  ‘This is bigger than you, Bailey.’ Dexter was backing down too. ‘Bigger than me. Bigger than us.’

  ‘I know. That was a low blow.’

  Bailey was done being an arsehole. Dexter was right, she did have a job to do. An important one. Dexter had always sought justice the right way, by working hard, doing things by the book. Bailey couldn’t mark her down for not sharing sensitive information with a reporter. Even the one who’d been sleeping beside her. It was arrogant for him to have thought otherwise. Unfair.

  Tiny drops of rain had splattered on Dexter’s cheekbones, making them glisten. She managed a smile, a web of lines wrapping the edges of her tired eyes. She looked beautiful in the afternoon light, reminding Bailey about the other person in there.

  ‘What’re you doing now? Want to grab a bite?’

  ‘I can’t, Bailey. I want to, but I can’t.’

  ‘Work?’

  ‘I’m going back to talk to Ayesha.’

  ‘Fair enough. Later then. You know where to find me.’

  ‘I really am sorry, y’know.’ She put her hand on his cheek. ‘Bailey, there’s something I need to know.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Do you love me? I mean . . .’ She paused, looking for a way to rephrase the question. ‘I mean, after all this is done. Can we? Do you? I just need the truth.’

  Yeah. He loved her. He just didn’t know how to say it.

  Dexter withdrew her hand. ‘I’ll take that as a no.’

  She turned to walk away, but he grabbed her, pulling her close so that she could feel his breath on her face.

  ‘I don’t love anyone else.’

  He put his arms around her, holding her in the street so that they could both forget, even for just a few seconds, where they were, and why.