by Alan G Boyes
Instinctively he knew he needed to escape quickly. His senses, heightened by the searing pain, told him not to go back past the house, so he half ran, half stumbled towards the loch. As he turned the corner at the edge of the lawn, the dam came into sight and spurred him to run faster. He ran across the pebbled shore, heading directly towards the small gate, and stepped straight onto the crusted peat. Initially the ground bore his weight, but as he progressed his footprints began leaving deeper indentations into the dried, flaky surface until without warning his right front leg suddenly sank up to his knee, closely followed by his left leg. He came to such an abrupt halt he almost pitched over but regained his balance, held tight and virtually static. He tried to lever himself up, using his rifle, but his hands and arms simply sank into the thick, sticky soup. Slowly, panic came over him. He knew he was trapped and as his head cleared, and the bog reached his thighs, he realised he was sinking ever so slowly into his grave.
Fadyar did not want to waste time pursuing the mortally wounded Donaldson and she returned to the kitchen. Cindy was shaking and sobbing, still naked, holding onto the chair. Paulette was ashen, shivering with fear, open-mouthed.
“You should sit down” said Fadyar to Cindy. “Please, sit down.”
Cindy moved slowly and silently to the chair.
“Thank you, thank you. He was a monster. Is he dead. Where is he? Who, who are you?” Her rambling questions revealed the extent of Cindy’s shock and confusion.
“He’s gone. A terrible man. He will not come back. The wound was serious and he will be too weak to move very soon. You can consider yourself very lucky for he would have killed you after you had served his purpose. He abused, raped and then killed three schoolgirls in Iraq when he was a soldier with the occupying forces. He cut their throats when he had finished with them.”
The colour that had just started to return to Paulette’s face disappeared again. Cindy made to stand up but Fadyar pulled her gun.
“I am very sorry, but I cannot allow you to go. Sit down please, I will not hurt you if you do as I ask. Please.”
“My God, what is going on here! Who are you? Were you with him – Donaldson? What is going on?” Cindy demanded answers from Fadyar, but there was also something about the olive skinned woman and her words that was slightly reassuring to Cindy who sat back on the chair.
“I will tell you, if you are patient Mrs Crossland. First, though, put the robe on and I will help your friend, but I cannot untie her.”
Cindy was too weary to argue and loosely wrapped herself in her own robe. The ordeal had left her devoid of energy and she needed time to recover her strength and mind. Fadyar turned to Paulette, “Are you hurt?”
Paulette shook her head. Fadyar carefully picked up Paulette’s robe and placed it on her before she picked up several of Donaldson’s discarded ties.
“I am sorry, really sorry after what you have just gone through, but I must do this.”
A semblance of a thin smile spread across Paulette’s burst lips, “We have just heard something like that,” the note of sarcasm ignored by Fadyar.
Cindy studied Fadyar closely as the straps were applied around her wrists and ankles and secured to the chair in much the same manner as Donaldson had done to Paulette.
“You look familiar, and you said my name. Who are you?”
“I was born Yasmin Hasan, though that is not the name I am known by now. I am here to pursue our Jihad against the imperialist occupying forces that are seeking to destroy Islam.”
“We have nothing to do with that!” remarked Cindy, wearily.
“Oh, but you do. Or at least Mrs Assiter’s husband does. He is responsible for sending in the soldiers who kill us, take our land and make our children orphans.”
Paulette instantly reacted, “My husband is a good and honest man. He works for his country’s government, but he would never allow soldiers to do the things you say. He is not an enemy of Islam.”
Fadyar then told her of how a soldier with a name label of Briggs sewn onto his tunic came into her family home and killed her parents in September 2004.
“We were peace loving. We did not support Saddam in any way. We did not help any insurgents. My parents ran a store, that is all. They were shopkeepers. When the bombs and the firing started we stayed in our small room. We had to. Your bombs destroyed our shop but my parents never once criticised your country for that. Then, later, the soldier Briggs came in and machine-gunned them both whilst they sat on the sofa.”
Fadyar’s eyes began to well with tears, but composing herself, she continued. “I was in the bathroom and had to climb over their bodies, ripped and torn by American bullets, when the soldier had left. I am here to avenge their deaths and the hundreds of thousands of others your husband’s government has killed. Saddam was bad, yes. But his killings were never on the scale the coalition forces have inflicted. We continue to be killed in our hundreds every week, sometimes every day, and you say that you are peace-loving and that we are the forces of evil?” The bitterness and force of her words made Paulette wince.
“I will tell my husband. He will investigate, I know he will. This soldier you speak of, Briggs, he will be punished.”
“He will not. His parents will not be murdered. I doubt if he will even be arrested. Your armies lie over what they do and both your governments support those lies. Briggs is one of many. That man whom you said was called Donaldson. He also was a soldier in Iraq, for the British Army, and it was their imperialist government that sent him to my country to murder and rape our schoolchildren.”
Cindy and Paulette looked blankly at each other. The woman had just saved their life. They did not want to argue with her, but Paulette was fearful.
“So why are you here? It’s to do with my husband isn’t it? Please don’t kill him, he really is a good man.”
“I cannot tell you exactly, but I hope he is not killed. He is a brave man. I know that much as he has not surrounded himself with many security people. For what it is worth, I could have killed him by now had that been my wish”.
Fadyar paused then said. “I have to go. I have my work to do.”
“What have you done with the police guards?” Cindy casually remarked.
“I have done nothing, on that you have my word, but they are dead. The man Donaldson killed them.”
“Oh my God,” uttered Paulette.
“Did Donaldson tell you why he was here? Was he too after Mr Assiter?” Fadyar asked.
“No!” said Cindy. “He wanted me, though why he should follow me all the way up here and take these risks I really don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. He worked for my husband. Alan and I amicably divorced some while ago, and he is not the violent type or the sort to seek revenge on Gordon… er, Mr Truscott. Donaldson was always making suggestions to me… horrible man. ”
“I see” said Fadyar, slowly.
Fadyar then left the women in the kitchen whilst she went around the house searching for alarms and telephone lines. She studied the main alarm system and the panic circuitry which, whilst unfamiliar to her, she found relatively easy to disarm with her electronics knowledge gained from the training camp. She then went outside the house, aimed her rifle at the pylon that distributed the phone wires to the complex and fired. The shot broke the insulator and plastic connector into a thousand pieces, leaving the end of the wire fluttering helplessly down onto a tree. She checked the line was dead from the house and returned to the kitchen.
“I must go now. Please do not try to escape as I would not want to hurt you. You have both been through enough. But be in no doubt, I have a mission to carry out and I will not be stopped.”
For the first time Fadyar had sounded threatening.
As she opened the kitchen door Cindy called out “Yasmin, thank you for what you did for us.”
Fadyar turned, smiled and ran down to the jetty just as the grandfather clock in the hall started to strike midday. She sat on the wooden planks dangling her legs over the water
, looking but not really seeing. Confused by the events of the morning, she needed some time to recover, to refocus, but for the first time in months she was not able to concentrate on the mission. Images of her parents, her homeland, her early life came flooding back brought to the fore by her conversation with the two captive women. More images, this time of the women in the kitchen standing or seated beneath the vile Donaldson, him walking casually away from the school in the dusty heat of Baghdad. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. She looked up and saw the long, grey dam and slowly moved her head to the left taking in the high massif of Gleoraich, where already two people lay slain and where many more were likely to die shortly, but she continued to turn and gaze upon Gleoraich’s brothers and sisters, the almost unending array of peaks until she faced completely away from the dam and looked down the loch towards Kinloch Hourn. She could not see the cottage where she and her friends had stayed, where she and Khan comforted and made love, it being too far away, but she smiled to herself as she recalled their first primitive efforts at casting a fishing line. She took in several deep gulps of the fresh, clean air and stood up. No time for sentimentality, no place for indecision, no second thoughts. The kidnap, her plan, her revenge.
Her brain cleared and her mind was sharp once more. She reasoned that the Donaldson intervention, though unexpected and dangerous, had actually enhanced the probability of its success. All the security personnel with the exception of the two CIA agents protecting Assiter were now dead, the communications and alarms at Mealag were disabled and the two women were restrained. One thing only slightly puzzled her. She recognised Mrs Crossland and wondered why people from her past had today, of all days, reappeared into her life. The banker, Crossland, was obviously not around and Fadyar had an uneasy feeling that perhaps those responsible for telling her to use his bank had lied about him. She had been told that he was not involved or linked in any way to their organisation making it safe to use his bank. Whilst he was perhaps less scrupulous than most bankers in taking on risks, he seemed essentially honest and not likely to arouse interest from the authorities. Yet here, at the remotest of places, was his attractive ex-wife apparently living with Truscott – who just happened to be entertaining the US Secretary of State and his wife. She did not like co-incidences and she liked even less the possibility that her controllers had lied. The whole ethos of the Abu al-Mazan organisation was based on absolute trust. It had to be. Seated on the jetty, engrossed in her thoughts, Fadyar had not noticed the rapid change of weather approaching from the west and was startled when a few heavy drops of rain splashed onto her head. She called Khan on the two-way radio and ordered him to pick her up at the jetty even though she could have taken the last remaining boat that was tied there, but she did not want to fiddle about attempting to start the outboard. She had tried doing that a couple of times on the reconnaissance missions, only to discover that the ageing motors were somewhat temperamental and required a considerable degree of physical strength. However, had she attempted to start the Mealag boat it would have fired up instantly, being better maintained than the rental one she had been used to. Clouds obscured the hill tops which moments earlier Fadyar had been admiring but the loch itself was still flat and calm, its surface haphazardly punctured by the heavy rain falling onto it. As she called up Mattar she watched the approach of Khan’s boat slicing through the water, the large trailing wake evidence of its speed.
“Mawdud. All police at the lodge are dead, repeat dead. Communications severed. We now have to get our target. Do you understand?”
“Understood. They are in open country high on the hill, but we are having difficulty in following at a safe distance due to the cloud.”
“Mawdud. If it is that bad they will have to soon return. Be very watchful and stay in touch.”
“OK. Out.”
Ever cautious Fadyar deliberately untied the Mealag boat and secured it to Khan’s when he came alongside. Khan opened up the throttle and crossed the loch, towing the Mealag boat behind them. Waiting in the Land Rover, Khan nervously tapped his fingers on the dashboard. Fadyar just stared at the dam wall and watched the water gently lap against the tarred slope. Five minutes elapsed, then ten, then fifteen. The silence was shattered by a sudden loud crack of an un-silenced rifle shot, its echo ringing around the hills for several seconds. Fadyar got out of the vehicle and looked up at the mountain behind her. It was still covered in cloud, if anything it had thickened slightly and was now a greyish colour rather than white. The light was poor, the murkiness acting like a blanket thrown over the hill. She could see nothing, but clearly someone had fired a rifle shot.
Another fifteen minutes passed then her radio crackled into life and an out of breath Mawdud spoke rapidly. “They are coming back! The same way as they went. They have shot a deer and have loaded it onto a pole. We will try and take out the CIA at the tunnel, but if we fail you can get them as they descend.”
“Ok Mawdud. Good luck. Out.”
Fadyar made a rapid assessment of the situation. Mattar and Bagheri would have the element of surprise, but there were actually four armed persons, not two, now descending the hill carrying a deer. The disciplined stalkers would have broken their gun and removed the bullets for safety, but it would not take long to make them function again.
“Nasra. You start to climb up. Stay just out of sight of the tunnel entrance. They may need help when the shooting starts but remember try not to kill Assiter.”
Khan immediately jumped out and quickly started his climb.
“Mawdud. Sharid. Nasra is coming up. He will be below you both, do not fire at him.”
“OK. We understand,” Bagheri was first to respond.
She watched Khan go, hoping she had not sent him to his death. She had deliberately ordered everyone’s assignments to keep him away from the hill until the last possible moment, sending the others to take on the guards, keeping her sweet Nasra safe. There was nothing Fadyar could do now but wait.
70
Assistant Commissioner Manders had not stopped barking out his orders for a full fifteen minutes, whilst officers around him furiously scribbled notes of what he was saying. When he had finished, they scurried like rabbits back to their desks, each picking up their telephone or tapping away at their computer keyboard. Some would be briefing other governmental organisations, some notified the border control so that the ports and airports were on warning to ensure that any suspects could not easily slip out of the country. Others would be notifying all police constabularies across the UK of the incident and what was known of the suspects to ensure that road blocks and searches could be carried out anywhere, quickly and easily, should the need arise. The other emergency services, including every North of Scotland hospital, were placed on full alert via a coded message that told them to expect potentially significant casualties. This was a precaution. Manders knew that the target was not mass destruction, such as the tube attack the previous year, but if terrorists are on the run and desperate, they were capable of doing anything, anywhere. That might include running into a busy shopping precinct and either opening fire with machine guns or using explosives. Once his specialist officers had done all they could to address the immediate priorities, they would then turn their attention to allied investigative work regarding the terrorist plot itself – notably identifying who the terrorists were and, if time permitted, some would start looking into why the plot had not been discovered earlier. The ATU team, headed by Manders, could now do little more. The plot itself was now for other teams to handle and to neutralise if possible.
In the UK, terrorism is regarded as a crime and the police are the only law enforcement agency mandated by Her Majesty’s Government to deal with crime, however major. Paradoxically, the UK is almost alone among nations of not having a singular force, such as the FBI in the United States, to take charge of major crime and terrorist incidents. The UK has however been copied by many other states in relation to its command structure for dealing with major incid
ents, such as terrorism, prison riot, major fires, serious hostage taking and so on. Essentially, when a major incident is underway, three command centres – Gold, Silver and Bronze are immediately set up.
The Gold Commander is in overall control of the logistic resources at the incident. The Commander will not be on site but at a distant control room called Gold Command (or simply ‘Gold’), where those present will formulate the strategy for dealing with the incident. The Silver Commander is the tactical commander who manages the strategic direction from Gold and devises sets of actions that are completed by Bronze. Silver Command is rarely located at the scene as it needs to be able to take a step back and review all the different Bronze resourcing. Silver will not become directly involved in dealing with the incident itself. Bronze Command directly controls the resources at the incident and will be very near to, or at, the scene. The Commander is usually under the main control of the police unless it is a fire and rescue-led incident or, sometimes, a prison incident, irrespective of which organization Bronze actually works for. This is to ensure safety and efficiency of all involved as far as possible. If an incident is widespread geographically, different Bronzes may assume responsibility for the different locations and if the incident is of a complex nature the separate Bronzes are given their own tasks or responsibilities at an incident – for example, intelligence gathering, cordon management or survivor management.
Mealag Lodge was now the location of a known terrorist incident. As such all three command centres would be headed by serving police officers but, given the idiosyncrasies of the British police force, the Chief Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis and Britain’s highest-ranking police officer, can only advise a regional constabulary despite his superior rank, though any local commander would be wise to listen to the advice and be ready to explain, should the need arise, why he had ignored it. As Manders was briefing his team Sir Neil Roberts was in touch with Peter Duncan, the Northern Area Commander with a reputation for plain-speaking and fierce independence. Usually it is obvious who will head the command centres, but Roberts had voiced concern as to the expertise of some of Duncan’s subordinates. All, of course, had received anti–terrorist training and would have passed the demanding training courses in order to be able to act as commander but the Scottish Highlands was not noted for its experience of such serious crime. The word Roberts used to Duncan about the current plot was “challenging”.
