The Exit Club: Book 4: Conspirators

by Shaun Clarke

  Relenting, the police brought another BBC newsdesk deputy editor, Tony Crabb, to talk to the terrorist leader through Sim Harris, who was again exposed at an upstairs window with a gun to his head. When Tony Crabb explained the BBC’s minimalist broadcasting of the terrorist demands as a ‘misunderstanding’, the terrorist leader said that if they did not broadcast his full statement every hostage in the building would be killed.

  Two other hostages were brought to the window to confirm that the terrorists were deadly serious. The terrorist leader gave his statement while pointing his gun at the head of one of the hostages. Crabb wrote the statement down in his notebook, but the police then used his promise to broadcast it in full as a bargaining chip to obtain the release of two more hostages. The terrorist leader agreed, but insisted that if his statement was not read out on the nine o’clock news that evening, he would send out a dead hostage.

  By now it was clear to Marty, from the increasing violence of the terrorist leader’s outbursts, that he was reaching the end of his tether and might indeed soon start killing.

  Three hours before the due broadcast, the terrorist leader released one of his two promised hostages as a gesture of good faith. His full statement was broadcast as promised. Minutes after it ended, the second hostage was released.

  Nevertheless, the deadly game continued. By the evening of the fifth day, when it was clear that no Arab ambassadors were willing to involve themselves in the matter, the terrorists reduced their demands to a request for one Arab ambassador to act as a mediator and guarantee a safe passage for the terrorists. The police, however, kept playing for time, fearful that an assault on the embassy could lead to the deaths of some, or all, of the hostages.

  Marty, on the other hand, given what he had learned from a combination of his audio-visual surveillance and the reports of the released hostages, was aware that both the terrorists and the hostages were becoming more volatile. Indeed, earlier that evening one of the terrorists had lost his temper and almost shot a hostage during an argument. Because of this, Marty was convinced that the assault should begin before crisis point was reached. The Police Commissioner, however, remained adamant that the talking should continue.

  Later that evening, another hostage, the journalist Mustafa Karkouti, was released, suffering from severe diarrhoea and fever. Interrogated by the police, he gave them a wealth of information, including the names of the terrorists, the weapons they were holding, the exact whereabouts of the hostages, and the psychological state of the terrorists, which was, he said, now one of mounting despair, tension and irritability. All of the terrorists, he said, now wanted out. For this reason, their leader had given Karkouti a message to pass on to the police: if they did not get in touch with the Arab ambassadors ‘something bad’ would happen.

  Hearing those words, Marty hurriedly made his way to the SAS Forward Holding Area and again told his men to prepare for action.

  On the morning of the sixth day, still calling the terrorists’ bluff, the Home Secretary let it be known that the ‘ambassadorial phase’ had passed and that the only concession they would get was a visit from an imam from the Regent’s Park Mosque, who would attempt to act as a mediator. However, while the imam was being brought to the embassy, the terrorist leader, discovering that the police were inserting more bugs in the building, flew into a violent rage. When, shortly after, Iran’s foreign minister sent the hostages a telegram, praising them for their forbearance in the face of the ‘criminal actions’ of Ba’athis Iraq, the terrorist leader flew into an even worse rage and said that, if the Arab ambassadors did not enter negotiations, a hostage would be shot in half an hour.

  The male hostages were then moved out of Room 9A, on the second floor, overlooking the rear garden, and put into Room 10, overlooking Princes Gate.

  According to messages received from PC Lock and Sim Harris, the terrorists had since put on their anoraks and wound their keffias around their heads, indicating that they were ready to fight or kill.

  At approximately 1330 hours, when no Arab ambassador had yet shown up at the embassy, the ambassador had yet shown up at the embassy, the year-old Abbas Lavasani, behind his back and then tied him to the bottom of the bannisters. Handing PC Lock the phone, he told him to tell the police that he was about to shoot one of the hostages. Lock duly conveyed this information to them.

  Still playing for time, the negotiators informed the terrorists that the Arab ambassadors would be meeting at 1700 hours to discuss the situation. Shortly afterwards, they received another call from the embassy and, when the phone was picked up, they heard Abbas Lavasani identifying himself.

  Three shots were then fired in quick succession, followed by groaning, a choking sound, then silence. The terrorist leader then informed the police that he had just shot a hostage.

  There was, however, no proof that a hostage had actually been shot. The terrorists could still be bluffing. Indeed, they had accepted the 1500-hour deadline for the appearance of the Arab ambassadors. COBR therefore decided that if the ambassadors did not show up – and it was generally believed that they would not – control of the situation would be passed from the police to the SAS.

  When Marty was informed of this through Lieutenant-Colonel Osborne, he confirmed that the preparations for the Deliberate Assault Plan would be completed by that time and that from 1700 hours the assault could be launched without delay.

  By 1700 hours, none of the Arab ambassadors had shown up.

  Mercifully, there was no response from the terrorists.

  Thirty minutes later, however, the Police Commissioner received a call from the terrorist leader, saying that if the Arab ambassadors did not show in another thirty minutes, another hostage would be killed and his or her body thrown out onto the pavement.

  By this time, the imam being offered as a mediator had been collected from the Regent’s Park Mosque, taken to Hyde Park Police Station, made to languish there for ninety minutes, then taken on to Princes Gate where he was escorted into the police negotiating room of Alpha Control, located in the nearby nursery school, from where he talked to the terrorist leader by radio phone. Told not to negotiate or bargain at all, but simply to convey the police terms for surrender, the imam did so. The terrorist leader responded by stating that if the Arab ambassadors did not turn up in thirty minutes, they would kill not one but two hostages.

  Even as the imam was putting down the phone and telling the police that the terrorist leader had sounded ‘very disturbed’, Marty was placing his Red and Blue teams on a ten-minute standby.

  In Alpha Control the telephone rang again. Picking it up, a negotiator was informed that the terrorists were not going to wait for another thirty minutes. Instead, they were going to kill a hostage in two minutes.

  When the imam urgently rang the terrorist leader back and quoted the Prophet Muhammad to him, the terrorist slammed the phone down. Mere seconds later, when the phone rang again and the imam picked it up, he heard only the sound of heavy breathing. This was followed by the sound of three shots. Then the line went dead.

  Shortly after, the front door of the embassy opened and a dead body was pushed out onto the pavement.

  The embassy door was slammed shut again.

  A few minutes later, at 1907 hours, the SAS formally took control of the situation and the assault began.

  ‘Shake out!’ Marty snapped.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Even as a police pathologist was discovering that the body dumped on the pavement outside the embassy was that of Abbas Lavasani, who had been dead for hours and could not have been killed by the three bullets just fired – which meant either that there was another dead body inside or that the second ‘killing’ had been a bluff

  – the SAS were springing into action.

  By 1905 hours the members of the two assault teams and the perimeter containment group were all dressed in their black CRW suits with GPV wraparound soft body armour, S6 respirators, anti-flash hoods and goggles, and armed with the re
quisite weapons and assault gear, ready to go. Sitting on their beds in the FHA at the Royal College of Medical Practitioners, looking like extraterrestrials, they were briefed once more by Marty, then told to synchronize their wristwatches at 1915 hours.

  At precisely 1919 hours, they left the FHA and went in their separate directions, with Red Team taking the stairs to the top of the building, Blue Team heading for the basement area of the rear garden, and the perimeter containment group, or Zero Delta sniper team, divided into two smaller groups, one to be located in a block of flats at the rear of the embassy, the other at a camouflaged position in Hyde Park. Both sniper groups, when the assault commenced, would fire CS gas canisters through the windows of the embassy and then give the assault teams covering fire if and when the terrorists emerged from inside the building.

  Though prevented by his age from taking part in the assault, Marty was able to follow most of it with the aid of the audio-visual surveillance equipment in his sixthfloor command centre overlooking the rear of the embassy. Even as the CCTV monitor was showing the members of Red Team crossing from the College of Medical Practitioners to the roof of the embassy, codenamed ‘Hyde Park’, the police negotiator at ground level was talking to the terrorists, keeping them distracted with the false promise of a bus to the airport with PC Lock driving. As the men of Red Team reached the abseiling ropes on the roof of the embassy, the men of Blue Team were taking another route, emerging silently onto the adjoining balcony that led from Room 14 to 16. There they stopped and waited.

  The time was precisely 1920 hours.

  On the roof of the embassy, the men of Red Team divided into two groups, Call Sign 1 and Call Sign 2. The four men of Call Sign 2, led by Tommy ‘TT’ Taylor, went immediately to kneel around the well surrounding the fourth-floor skylight and prepare the explosive frame to be lowered by rope. As they were doing so, the men of Call Sign 1 went to the rear of the building, overlooking the lawns about twenty-five meters below. There they found the abseiling ropes still tied to the chimneys and coiled beneath them, as they had been from the first day of the siege. With their Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns slung over their shoulders, they put together the components of the abseiling equipment, first clipping the metal descendeur to the harness, then slipping the nylon rope through the descendeur. Standing on the edge of the roof, each member of the abseiling team covered his face with his respirator, hood and goggles, checked that the integral microphones and radio receivers were working, and prepared to go over the side.

  By now the four men of Call Sign 2 had fixed ropes to the sides of the large frame explosive and were lowering it down the well to the fourth-floor skylight. When the frame was dangling just above the skylight, they manoeuvred it into position by tugging gently on the ropes, then dropped it carefully over the frame of the skylight until both frames were matching. This delicate task completed, they laid the ends of the four ropes gently on the roof, set the explosive charge with a timer and electronic detonator, then covered their faces with their respirators and joined the other abseilers on the edge of the roof overlooking the rear of the building.

  Meanwhile, on the balcony behind protective walls at ground floor and garden level, the Blue Team troopers, who had already covered their faces with their respirators and goggles, waited with explosives and ladders, each man tuned into the radio frequency that would enable him to strike the moment the attack signal, ‘London Bridge’, was given.

  At that very moment, the attention of the terrorists was still being distracted by the false promises of the police negotiators. Each time the negotiators stalled, which they were now doing repeatedly, first making a promise, then trying to wriggle out of it, the terrorists would become more agitated and distracted.

  The male hostages in the telex room, Room 10, overlooking Princes Gate, and the female hostages in Room 9A on the second floor, were becoming increasingly fearful as the protracted negotiations continued and the terrorist leader started showing visible signs of cracking.

  Finally, under orders from the terrorist leader, PC Lock phoned the negotiators, asking them to get the bus to the embassy as soon as possible because the terrorists were expecting an attack any minute. When the negotiators smoothly denied that such was on the agenda, the terrorist leader wrenched the phone from PC Lock and screamed that he could hear suspicious noises all around the building.

  At that very moment, an explosive charge blew away the reinforced skylight roof and the attack commenced.

  At the sound of the explosion, which came within seconds of the radio signal ‘London Bridge’, Sergeant Alan Pearson, with Red Team, slipped on the harness and resolutely stepped backwards off the embassy roof to begin his dangerous drop down the wall. Hanging out from the wall, with a twenty-five metre drop below him, did not make for a comforting sensation, but Pearson gamely lowered himself, using the descendeur to control the speed of his drop.

  ‘First man over,’ a voice reverberated eerily in his electronic eardefence headset. ‘Second man over.’

  Glancing upward, Pearson saw the second abseiler, Trooper Jock McGregor, only a short distance above him, stepping backwards off the edge of the roof, using his booted feet for leverage as his body arched out over that twenty-five metre drop to begin the descent. Satisfied, Pearson glanced down and saw the third-floor window about four metres below him. Growing more optimistic and excited, he continued his descent, first passing the attic floor, then approaching the balcony window below it. However, he had travelled only about five metres when his rope snagged, leaving him dangling just below the attic floor, above the third-floor window.

  Cursing, he told Trooper McGregor what had happened, his voice being channelled through his throat mike. McGregor dropped lower, but stopped just above Pearson’s head, waiting to see if he could untangle his harness. Pearson attempted to do just that, but the harness was so hot that he almost burned his fingers. Realizing that the rope had overheated because of the friction caused by his weight and then ravelled into a knot, he cursed into his throat mike again (all of this being recorded on the audio-surveillance equipment in the command centre where Marty was located), then started wriggling frantically this way and that, his booted feet pressed to the wall as he used them for leverage.

  ‘Damn it, I can’t do it!’ he bawled.

  Inching lower in his own harness to stop right above him, McGregor tried to set him free. For a moment he felt dizzy, looking down that dreadful drop, but he took a deep breath, opened and closed his eyes, then tried a second time to set Pearson free. Instead, he jerked too hard, make his harness go into a spin, and had to swing his feet out to prevent himself from crashing into the wall. There was the sound of breaking glass. Glancing down, he saw, with despair, that his booted foot had gone through the third-floor window and the glass was breaking noisily, with some shards raining into the room, others falling all the way down to the terrace where they smashed to smithereens, making even more noise.

  Knowing that the operation was compromised, shocked and angry that it had happened so quickly, Sergeant Pearson bawled into his throat mike: ‘Go! Go! Go!’

  He was still bawling when the frame charge placed over the well skylight exploded with a deafening roar, blowing the glass to pieces, making the whole building shake, and causing part of the roof to collapse. Debris showered down on the stairs that joined the front and rear second floor.

  Simultaneously, the Zero Delta sniper team, located behind a high wall at the front of the building, began firing CS gas canisters through the broken windows. Likewise, from ground positions in front of the embassy, other members of Zero Delta fired CS gas canisters into the second floor, smashing those windows as well. The noise was appalling.

  While Alan Pearson and Jock McGregor continued struggling in their harness just above the broken thirdfloor window, the second pair of abseilers, TT and Trooper Dennis ‘Geordie’ Webb, dropped past them, not stopping until they reached the ground-floor terrace. Another pair, Lance-Corporal Wilson and Troo
per Art Penrose, dropped rapidly to the first-floor balcony window.

  Once on the terrace, TT and Geordie shucked off their harnesses. Without a word, Geordie swung his Remington 870 pump-action shotgun into the firing position and blasted the lock off the doors, causing wood splinters and dust to fly away in all directions. Kicking the doors open as Geordie dropped to one knee, holding the shotgun in one hand and withdrawing his Browning High Power handgun with the other, TT hurled a couple of MX5 stun grenades into the library and rushed in even as they were exploding. Geordie followed him, turning repeatedly left and right, preparing to fire a double tap if he saw any movement. Though their eyes were protected from the blinding flash by the tinted lenses in their respirators, a combination of condensation on the lenses, natural adjustment to the half-light, and the swirling smoke from the flash-bangs made them view the thousands of books on the walls through what seemed like fog.

  ‘Fucking empty,’ Geordie said in frustration to TT as the condensation on his lenses cleared, though the smoke continued swirling about them.

  ‘Right,’ TT replied, equally frustrated. ‘So let’s head for the stairs.’

  When Geordie had slung the shotgun over his left shoulder and removed the submachine gun from his right, they hurried out of the library, leaving the smoke behind them, and carefully made their way to the cellar stairs. There they were joined by a couple of troopers from Red Team, emerging from another cloud of smoke, looking bulky and inhuman in their black CRW outfits, NBC masks and hoods. Using a silent hand signal, TT indicated that they should investigate the cellar. Though aware that terrorists might be hiding down there and that the entrance could be boobytrapped, they wrenched away the ladders covering the door, tugged the door open, and made their way cautiously down the steps, into the gloom below. The sounds of battle were raging in the embassy above them, but the cellar was deadly quiet.