Locked and Loaded: A Riz Sabir Thriller Omnibus

by Charlie Flowers

  Bang-Bang went off to check that the canteen was lively. Ten minutes later she came back with a tray of teas and plates of stew and plonked them down with a wry look. ‘Slop jockeys are on form tonight - Frappe Mystique a la Horse Guards, or stew to you and me.’

  I started on the stew with the standard plastic spoon. To be fair I felt happy to be back in the warm embrace of the UK military establishment. At least you knew where you stood.

  A signals operator stood and called out ‘Feeds are up. COBR is live. Paris is live.’ The wallscreens came to life and split into various areas. Colonel Mahoney, Toots and some Army top brass were near the front of the room. He was speaking. ‘The marches begin the day after tomorrow, no matter what. Newcastle, Liverpool, Bradford, Reading, and Birmingham. The problem is that although the Home Secretary and powers-that-be can put banning orders on marches, they can’t ban static demos. And how does one go en-masse to a static demo? That’s right, they walk… march, down the road. We’re trying to get emergency powers activated through civil contingency planning regulations, but that might not kick in in time. That’s the bad news. The good news is we’re activating every camera system we have including Project Champion.

  ‘Oh. More bad news. There’s also been an influx from the European mainland in the last two weeks, spiking in the last few days. A mix of Blood and Honour supporters, gig-goers, NDL, you name it. We can only speculate.’

  He turned to Bang-Bang and I.

  ‘By the way, well done, you two. Tchéky was just on. One of those prints you lifted made a 73 percent match on the French Armée De La Terre database. They’re checking it manually now, but it looks like one Paul-Pierre Jesko, just got back from Afghanistan and dropped off the radar.’

  A photo of a cropped-haired, tough-looking guy came up along with a French Ministry of Defence docket.

  ‘That’s going into Project Champion and TrapWire, if it or we see him, you’ll know.’

  I raised a hand. ‘I thought Champion had been scrapped?’

  He smiled. ‘Not all of it. We still have some of it active, and we’re running TrapWire on it.’

  Project Champion had been a rather ill-advised programme where cameras had been erected all around Muslim areas in Birmingham. After some outcry it had been publically shelved. Or maybe not. TrapWire was cutting-edge, a predictive software system that analysed surveillance video for attack patterns and indicators of what we called “hostile reconnaissance”. The system could be placed on any camera network, be it traffic, police, a private firm. It was then just a case of letting it run and do its thing.

  I was on my own again. The staff went about their business, phones rang and the screens flicked as they updated with no kind of good news. Bang-Bang had gone upstairs into the tower block to scout out an empty room for us. Hopefully someone would be on leave or in Afghanistan and we could crash and get a few hours kip.

  The Colonel called out again. ‘OK. Troops. The planes are refuelling now and going up again. Everything. We’ve got about 48 hours tops. The Conservative conference in the city is now… off, due to the threat level and they’re not happy about holding up and relocating.’

  I shrugged. Stuff ‘em. Personally I didn’t care if they held it in a Nissen hut in Reading.

  A tall black man I didn’t recognise came into the room, escorted by an NCO. He was carrying a large archive storage box and Toots greeted him warmly. She brought him over. ‘This is Lennie. DCI Lennie George.’

  He shook my hand. ‘I’m with you lot now. And this…’ he placed the archive box on a desk, ‘is everything the CPS has on Colonel Mahoney and you guys. All yours.’

  I had to thank him. ‘Perfect, Lennie. Thankyou. We can make this, disappear.’

  He smiled. ‘That’s what I thought.’ He and Toots went to look at the wall screens and confer on something. I decided to keep digging into the stew. Bang-Bang walked over to the little conflab of the boss, our new copper friend and Toots, and began drawing things on a piece of printer paper. I could see the Colonel’s face cycling through shades of bemusement, concern, then anger and finally, amusement. He started explaining something. I knew what she was doing. She was sketching FlameLite’s new capabilities.

  I was halfway through the stew when my BlackBerry buzzed with an unknown number. I answered. ‘War Office, wanna fight?’

  A spiky laugh. ‘Tommy Robinson here. You wanna speak with me?’

  ‘Yes, ASAP as in first thing tomorrow morning. Me and Bang-Bang will drive up.’

  ‘OK, I’ve heard of you two. You know where I live?’

  ‘Don’t be daft mate, you’re on our database.’

  ‘Fair one. See ya tomorrow.’ The line went dead. Bang-Bang traipsed back over and picked up her stew. ‘Who was that doll?’

  ‘Tommy, Holly. We’re round his first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Ah good. I suppose you’re going to ask about the Colonel’s face when I explained what FlameLite and my army of infomorphs did and how they could help take out any Met police threats or evidence. That Lennie bloke looked a bit stunned, too.’

  ‘I saw it all babe. What did the Colonel say?’

  ‘After much muttering, he agreed but said under NO circumstances should I turn it on until he’s got “higher approval”. After all, it destroyed an airbase.’

  ‘I think he’s right. I think anyone normal would be a bit concerned after being shown the future of information warfare. Did you get a room?’

  She grinned. ‘Yep. View of the park, an’ all.’

  38

  October 6th

  7.50am the next morning. Luton, L-Town, here we go. I rang the bell of Tommy Robinson’s house. As we waited by the door, a car full of Asian lads idled past, glaring at us. Me and Bang-Bang gave them the thousand-yard stare back and she swept her jacket back to reveal the CZ85 tucked into the top of her daisy dukes. They left sharpish.

  The door opened on the chain. Tommy. A short, nervy guy wearing a Lacoste polo shirt. ‘Well if it ain’t the Pakistani Bodie and Doyle. You’d better come in.’

  He unchained the door. We went through to a living room knocked-through to a conservatory. I dispensed with the preamble. ‘Tommy, as you know, we’re from KTS, Holly here is also from the Hur al-Ayn, we haven’t got time to fuck around, OK, first thing I’m going to ask you to call off the march…’

  ‘To which I will say no.’

  I nodded. ‘Thought as much. But I had to ask. Second thing, Tommy, we want to know who might take advantage of it. C18, Infidels, Blood and Honour. Sikhs Versus Shariah.’

  Tommy regarded us both for a second and sniffed. Then he spoke. ‘Bit early for a beer, so, tea? By the way, Holly – great shoot.’

  ‘Tea’d be lovely, please luv, white no sugar’ said Holly and he was off into the kitchen. I looked at her. She mouthed ‘what?’

  ‘I’d love to know.’

  ‘He’s talking about my Bizarre magazine shoot. July? Remember? Ostrich feathers? Don’t look at me like that Rizwan Sabir, you have a copy in your flat.’

  I shrugged and went to look at the framed photos on the wall. Bang-Bang joined me and we spent a few minutes looking at pictures from demos and EDL memorabilia and arguing sotto voce about who was who.

  Presently Tommy returned with a tray and got busy pouring. And then he fixed me with a long stare, and fished some photos from inside his jacket pocket and laid them on the table.

  ‘Riz. These do not leave this house. That’s all I’m going to say. What you’re looking at is the 2009 London meeting of the Justiciar Knights, The Order 777, and the hidden history of the counter-jihad. Your third man on the right is the one you want to be looking for - the hidden imam, so to speak.’

  He grinned. We weren’t smiling.

  ‘The other lot that are worrying me are Sikhs Versus Shariah, proper nutjobs that lot.’

  I had half an ear on what he was saying but I was concentrating on the face of the third man on the right, sitting right next to Anders Behring Breivik. A
large man with a shaved head and celtic rune tattoos glared out from the photo. The missing link. The hidden imam.

  ‘This him?’

  ‘That’s him. “Richard Lionheart”. Breivik’s real commander on earth. His real name is Chris Fletcher. Ever heard that name?’

  We hadn’t, and we both shook our heads.

  ‘He has no mobile, no computer, only uses payphones. Never been arrested so his prints and DNA aren’t on file. If he wants to communicate he just writes a letter on an old manual typewriter and then the people under him post the communiqué via Tor. Like those messages on behalf of Breivik. Chris here holds Bosnian and Liberian passports, has no National Insurance number, nothing. He’s never even been on a YouTube video. He’s a ghost.’

  People like this were extremely rare, and a waking nightmare for security services. Nowadays, if you had no electronic footprint, it was almost impossible to be traced. I sipped my tea, and then got out my BlackBerry and took some shots and emailed them to the Colonel with an attached text. ‘Boss. This is Chris Fletcher - Lionheart. Get these into the system for facial recognition?’

  I spoke. ‘Tommy. Are you dead set on doing this march?’

  He sat back. ‘I am. I can’t not. I can’t walk away from something I believe in, and I’m not going to apologise for it. You know what Edward Abbey said? “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”’

  ‘He did,’ I replied. ‘He also said “Society is like a stew. If you don’t stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.”’

  Tommy studied me for a moment to see if I was baiting him. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t.

  He continued. ‘On the other hand, Riz, I don’t want MY march hijacked by Nazis or Sikh lunatics, so, stay in touch on the day. We’ve got each others’ numbers.’

  I nodded. ‘OK. Do you know Duckie?’

  He grinned. ‘We all know about Duckie. Top bird.’

  We finished our tea and stood. Holly spoke. ‘Maybe see you on the day. Be careful Tommy. Look out for the faces.’ He smiled. ‘I will, Holly. I’ll be looking out for them.’

  39

  Corley services on the M6. We’d driven straight here from Luton, scarfed a quick breakfast, and we were now sitting on a low wall in the car park near the van with our poor-quality Starbucks teas. I checked my watch for the third time and Bang-Bang slapped my wrist. ‘Stop it. They’ll be here.’

  I shrugged and looked away. Tomorrow was D-Day and we had nothing, not a thing. We were all due at 23 SAS’s barracks up in the north of Birmingham as soon as possible.

  9.04am. Before us in the car park two sleek white motorhomes and two souped-up Ford street racers, one a Tickford Capri, the other a classic Sierra RS Cosworth, roared and grumbled in and stopped in a staggered line. The engines shut down one after the other, and just as per usual, the drivers and crews got out and started arguing. Sixties Rare Groove was thumping from the leftmost motorhome. Jesus Christ, here was the Hur al-Ayn.

  ‘D’you ever look at that lot, Holly, and wonder…’

  ‘Often. They’re crazy, aren’t they?’

  I recognised Raggydoll. She was stumbling out of the side door of the nearest motorhome wearing big shades and lugging an inflatable shark. Sadie emerged, blinking and even more heavily pregnant than last time I’d seen her.

  There was a commotion. Calamity had Roadrunner up against one of the motorhomes and was shouting at her. Roadrunner looked like a snake about to strike and was reaching for something in her jacket. Without further ado, Fuzz dropped down from the cab and clumped Calamity round the head.

  ‘D’you also ever wonder, Holly, what helter-skelter we’re going down here, and whether we might all like it a little bit too much?’

  Her gaze focused on mine. Again, those non-committal hazel eyes. There was another commotion in the car park as Sadie hit Roadrunner with an A to Z and Roadrunner punched her in the eye and then launched into Calamity, who fell backwards over the inflatable shark. Then everyone piled in.

  ‘How d’you mean, Riz doll?’

  ‘Well… law and order is unravelling. You saw what happened to the top cops last night. The army’s all over the place, extremist groups are squaring up to each other and promising all kinds of death and mayhem. Oh and the Home Office and our employers at the MOD are in open war with the Met. It’s chaos.’

  She smiled slightly. ‘It’s great, Riz.’

  ‘Oh so obviously moral relativism is lost on you.’

  ‘Moral relativism be damned, Riz. There’s them, and there’s us, and we fight and die for us and that’s it.’ She clasped my hand and this time the smile was warmer. ‘What code d’you follow, doll?’

  ‘The way of the companions of the Prophet.’

  ‘Still?’

  ‘Still, Miss Bang-Bang. You?’

  ‘The blood-code of the Hur al-Ayn. There might not be any overlap.’

  ‘There might not. I try to command the good…’

  She laughed. ‘…and forbid the evil. Bloody salafis.’

  And then we were suddenly enveloped by the gang as they whooped and welcomed Bang-Bang back from the dead, smothering her in kisses. Fuzz Shaheen wandered over behind the ruckus. She still had the old Fuzz swagger. ‘Found ya then.’ She grinned. ‘The murders I had hiring those wagons. I was the only one over 25 with a drivers’ licence.’ She looked back at Roadrunner and Calamity, who both grinned sheepishly.

  ‘Where’d the two Ford racers come from, Fuzz?’

  ‘Roadrunner and Calamity sourced them. Good work all round if I say so. Bhai - the gang has wheels.’

  Roadrunner had the hood of one of the motorhomes open and was poking at the engine approvingly. ‘150 brake horsepower. Nice.’ She waved towards the rear of the wagon. ‘Holly babes, Fuzz picked up the stuff you wanted. Go take a look.’

  We took a look around inside the wagon. It was a custom Swift Bolero with all the fittings, berths, bunks, kitchen, TV… and on the floor were a selection of Peli cases and kitbags. Bang-Bang chuckled. ‘Ahhhhh. My airforce. You will fly, my pretties.’

  Fuzz pulled my arm and showed me to the other wagon. On the floor of that were many green kitbags that I recognised as Uncle Khan’s. ‘Enough to start a small war, bhai. Both wagons. It’s all there.’

  This was good. There was a tug at my other sleeve. Calamity. ‘Come and indulge your inner petrolhead Riz, check the wheels out.’ She dragged me over to admire the custom Fords. I resisted the urge to point out that I’d been stealing these when she was still at school.

  ‘Look Riz bhai. Tickford Turbo Capri with all the skirting and spoilering, 205 horsepower. And over here, I give you the Sierra RS500 Cosworth with whaletail spoiler, and even more horsepower. I’ve checked the rear brakes on both and given their turbo systems a good going over. All we have to worry about is making sure they don’t take off.’

  ‘Perfect. OK ladies. Let’s get to Birmingham.’

  40

  We arrived in a convoy and got stared at like we were the Wacky Racers as we pulled in to the Kingstanding Road TA Centre, home of 487 (Kingstanding and Perry Bar) Squadron, RAF Air Training Corps, and also, headquarters of 23 SAS Regiment (Reserve). The ATC kids weren’t training tonight.

  We found room in the car park behind some army trucks and two things that made us stare. Two black MH-6 Little Bird helicopters. We hustled our kit out and made our way into the building. Bang-Bang muttered ‘blimey, are we back at school?’ She had a point. Cream walls, coat hooks, a trophy cabinet. We were shown through blue doors and then, school was out.

  The gym hall had been torn into and converted into a command centre. Taped-down cables ran to laptops and wall-mounted flatscreen displays. Three TVs were tuned to local news channels. One large flatscreen display showed a moving aerial picture from one of the orbiting Army spy planes. Another showed a map of Birmingham with cursors and arrows floating over march routes. KTS were not going to get caught on the hop this time round
. Behind us, some Int Corps staff were struggling with two rather impressive dioramas, one of the city as a whole and one of the city centre. That one came complete with crowd markers and vehicles, and all the junctions had been spot-coded for ease of reference. To one side were sheafs of plastic-wrapped streetmaps, also spot-coded. God I hated spot codes.

  Belatedly the gym door opened and Maryam limped in. We turned in amazement. She stared back. ‘And what? You think I’d let you lot start without me?’

  The gym hall erupted in laughter and she came to sit beside me. Behind her a bunch of Malay-looking girls had walked in and were quizzing the support staff. One waved at me and Maryam. That would have to be Pixie, the girl from the council. We went over. ‘Yep. I’m Pixie. This is Sasha, Lana, and Kiki.’

  The diminutive girls behind her also waved. Brummie Blackeyes. ‘They’re friends of ours, if you get my drift.’

  I got the drift.

  ‘I’ve brought the laptops. I want them to show me how to link this HQ to wherever we end up.’ An Army Signals girl showed us to a trestle table where an SAS guy was waiting. ‘You must be Riz. TrapWire staff called. Paul-Pierre Jesko just surfaced, positive hit from a CCTV in Digbeth two hours ago. He’s here.’

  ‘And if he’s here, they’re all here.’

  My phone buzzed. The Colonel. ‘Passing it on, Riz - Home Secretary wants to know if we should turn the city’s mobile networks off. You’re on the ground, your call.’

  All eyes were on me. I thought it through.

  ‘No. Not this time.’

  ‘OK. Good news is that the Cabinet has the authority under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to invoke emergency powers and make any necessary emergency regulations. On this one, you’re covered. To put it brutally, Riz, you’re Muslims so you’re needed, especially if we’re going to be defending mosques. They don’t want regular forces in there. The bad news is you’re the gang of lunatics who put acid in the coppers’ tea, but they’re going to overlook that… forever…’