TARGET BRITAIN: a political thriller

by Owen Bennett-Jones

  There were between 15 and 20 cars and trucks ahead of him. He took off his baseball cap and folded back the sun visors. There was no point in concealment now. It was time for confidence. Smile. Off to Bradford. Up the M1. Home for Christmas.

  Jaz tried to think it through. They would want to see his driving license – but that would have his name on it. He could say he had left it at home. Home. Where was home? And what was his name? And what about the insurance? Jaz suddenly remembered the list Ravi had given him and rifling through the bag searched for the piece of paper. It was at the bottom and slightly dog-eared but eventually Jaz found it and read what was on it. There were six number plates and six names but Jaz could not remember which number plates he has just put on the Mondeo half an hour earlier. He scanned the list hoping it would jog his memory. It didn’t. There was nothing for it. He couldn’t afford to get it wrong.

  Figuring it was better to get it done while he was as far away from the checkpoint as possible, Jaz opened the door and pretended to look ahead as if he was trying to work out what the delay was about. The cold morning air felt sharp on his forehead and he realised he’d been sweating. He wiped his skin dry with his hand. As he did so he moved forward past the bonnet and then glanced down to his left. LV 55 WSC.

  Back in the car he looked at the list. LV 55 WSC. Pamela Keating, 15 Angus Road, Brechin, Scotland.

  Scotland? He was heading north. Good. But Pamela Keating? Jaz felt the stubble on his chin and tried to think a way out of it. Wife? Girlfriend? Girlfriends don’t lend cars he thought. Better to say wife. But if he was married there’d be paperwork. Records. Things for the police to check. So girlfriend. Safer.

  He looked up and saw that a gap had opened up between the Mondeo and the next car. He switched his engine back on and drew forwards and then, as he contemplated his ever more limited options, he stopped. Maybe there was only one way out of this.

  Thinking he heard something he opened his window and leaning through it, looked ahead. The driver of a white transit van about 110 yards in front of him was leaning out of his window shouting. “Get a bloody move on! How long’s this taking?”

  Jaz did not hear the response but he did see that the van driver had now lost his patience. Suddenly the van reversed as the driver tried to make enough room to turn around and get out of the queue. But his anger caused him to miscalculate and he hit the bumper of the car behind. Within seconds the driver of that car was out on the road and, afraid to confront the van driver, was instead calling the police over to show them the damage. He was soon joined by some passers-by curious to see what was happening.

  He’d never get another chance like it. Putting his cap back on, Jaz used the space in front of him to execute a three-point turn. As he drove away, heading south he looked in his rear view mirror. There were even more people around the van. From what he could see, the police hadn’t even noticed him leave. When they were out of sight he headed once more for Golders Green again sticking to the smallest roads he could find.

  Figuring they’d be closed for Christmas, he headed for a row of workshops where he’d once dropped someone off. There were a dozen or so separate units each with areas of tarmac at the front separated by low brick walls. Normally they would be full to overflowing with cars, but with everyone being away there were no vehicles there at all. Jaz looked at each unit to see if anyone was working through Christmas but all the lights were off. He noticed that a couple of units had CCTV pointed over their parking areas. Jaz headed for the far corner of the furthest workshop which as far as he could make out had no CCTV.

  The next part of the journey would be by bike. He had rehearsed it in his head so many times he knew exactly what he had to do. He lifted the bike from the car along with the panniers, rucksack, two of the bombs and some masking tape. He put the bombs in the rucksack. He was expecting that he would have to park the bike for a few minutes and if it was stolen it would be better for the thief to find body parts in the panniers rather than bombs. Even through the hospital’s thick plastic bags he caught a whiff of decaying flesh. Handling them even more gently than the explosives he stored and strapped the panniers tight to the bike frame. And then he was off. He took it slowly. Ravi had calculated the journey would take at least two hours.

  In fact it had been Ravi who had come up with the target. Trawling the internet he had found a news item in the Dagenham Courier describing a British National Party meeting at the Westland Arms in Dagenham. Some Asians had walked in claiming they wanted to become BNP members. When the BNP activists physically ejected them a photographer was on hand to record the moment. “It was a publicity stunt,” a BNP statement had complained. “A publicity stunt that worked,” commented the Dagenham Courier’s lead editorial.

  Jaz pedalled through streets in which the homes were covered in Christmas lights. A few had elaborate displays of reindeers and sleighs. Here too there were more empty parking places than usual. Well away from the city centre now he only saw police outside the tube stations, always in pairs, and not stopping anyone – just there to be seen, Jaz thought. To provide reassurance. As he approached Dagenham the houses became smaller and lower and the temperature seemed to drop. He stopped to catch his breath and rest his legs. Here the decorations were still red and white but had nothing to do with Christmas: the houses were adorned with St George’s crosses.

  He cycled past pawnbrokers, bookies and blocks of flats with so many satellite dishes attached to the walls, he could not imagine how many families lived inside. A pit bull on a heavy silver chain rushed at him from a garden, yanking its leash and snarling.

  It was approaching six when Jaz saw the newsagent’s. Outside, on the pavement there were some empty cardboard boxes the owner must have left out to be collected by the bin men. Jaz stopped, grabbed a box and seeing a pile of Urdu newspapers took some of them as well. He was just moving away when he thought better of it, returned, put down the Urdu papers and picked up some Bengali ones instead. He just needed a BNP leaflet now and found one stuck to the side of a bus stop. Each corner was glued and he carefully took it down. With the tape he reckoned no one would notice the tears.

  Holding the box in front of him he cycled on until he saw the Westland pub. Stopping well short of its car park, he took cover in an alleyway and assembled his package. He put the bomb, the body parts and the newspapers in the box. And on the outside he taped the BNP leaflet. He tested the weight. It felt about right.

  He went on foot now trying to spot the cameras. He approached the pub from the side and left the box at a corner of the building near the back door. Mission accomplished, he went back to the bike. He was too tired to start cycling again and instead walked beside his bike as he started the journey back to Golders Green. He looked ahead and saw it was up hill. Ravi hadn’t mentioned that. Suddenly deflated by the adrenalin draining from his system he felt an overwhelming need for food and sleep.

  *****

  The Westland’s lunchtime shift started arriving at half past nine. Cleaners, to clear away the detritus of the night before and bar staff to restock for the night ahead. It would be busy. They would have carols round the piano. They always did on Christmas Eve. Christmas carols before diner. Christian carols. And with customers who knew the words.

  The box wasn’t spotted until half past ten when one of the cleaners was taking a black bin liner filled with empty crisp packets, soaked beer mats and fag ends to the wheelie bin round the back. She came back in, carrying it.

  “Looks like leaflets.” She put it on the bar.

  One of the bar staff who was refilling the soft drink fridges, stood up and looked at it. “Must be for Nic,” she said. “For tonight I suppose.”

  She took it off the bar and put it by the piano. Not a bad idea. Give out some leaflets after the singsong. Spread the word.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “We bang on about Islam. Why? Because to the ordinary public out there it’s the thing they can understand. It’s the thing the newspaper edito
rs sell newspapers with.” -- BNP leader Nick Griffin, March 2006

  11:55 Christmas Eve, The Oval, London

  Aysha woke up for the second time and lay on her back contemplating the night before and the days ahead. The problem was that she liked him. But first he disappeared for months sending just one text and now he was off again. She smiled as she remembered his desperation as they’d started making love.

  She decided to go for a walk along the river. The Thames was sparkling and all around she could see signs of Christmas. Stallholders on the south bank were selling last minute presents, gift-wrapping them in garish, metallic-coloured paper. She walked across Westminster Bridge, past the ministries in Whitehall and, completing her circuit home, down the Strand. It was there she saw his picture. In a window with a bank of about 20 TVs.

  Jaz. In black and white. But unmistakably the man who was in her bed just seven or eight hours before. She went into the shop and saw a forest of red and white placards announcing that the New Year sale had started early. An assistant with a spotty face and a wide tie barely concealing his unfastened top button caught her eye and pretended he was busy.

  She chased him round an aisle: “I just want to see the TV. Can you switch it up?”

  “In the sale?”

  “No. No. Just to see the TV.” As she looked around the shop she could see screens everywhere but the pictures were different: the news seemed to have moved onto something else.

  But then Jaz’s face was on again. It was the same picture but, she guessed, a different channel. She said to the man again: “Switch up the volume. What are they saying about him?”

  The boy picked up a remote control and pressed the volume.

  “... anyone with information should call this number.” Some digits flashed up on the screen.

  She walked towards the shop’s door in a daze. The assistant, interested now, followed her out. “You know him?”

  As she moved along the Strand she tried to think what she would do. She needed to be careful. She didn’t want any visa problems with the police. And she didn’t even know what they were saying about him. There was another TV shop now and, ignoring the cold she decided to wait outside. As the items came and went she tried to guess what the newsreader was saying. Cold snap. Heathrow delays. Christmas in Bethlehem. And then sooner than she expected they were back to the headlines. Jaz’s picture again and this time the words, Terror Alert.

  The bastard. And then the full implications sunk in. A real bastard. He had used her to hide. She dialled 999 on her mobile.

  “Police, fire or ambulance?”

  “Police.”

  “What is it concerning?”

  “The man on TV. The terror alert. I know him.”

  “Hold on.”

  For a couple of seconds she heard clicks. “Where are you?”

  “The Strand. Outside a TV shop.” More clicks.

  The operator sounded more relaxed now, less urgent.

  “OK. And tell me you name please.”

  “Aysha Hussein.”

  “And what happened? In your own time Aysha.”

  As she spoke she heard the sirens. Shocked by the speed with which they were coming and looking at the image of Jaz on screen, she cut off the phone, thrust it into her pocket, and crossed the street. There was a café opposite the TV shop that, despite the winter weather, still had some chairs on the pavement. She sat at one of them tried to lower her head into shoulders and seeing that would not conceal her enough picked up a free paper that had been left on one of the other tables. She opened it obscured the lower part of her face by pretending to read.

  Only one of the other tables was occupied - by a couple who had their bulky, tightly packed rucksacks leaning against their chairs. Both had patches sewn onto the top flap with the red and white Canadian maple leaf flag. They were bent over the table talking as they looked at a map.

  The sirens became louder and suddenly two police cars were screeching to a halt outside the TV shops. Not bothering to close their doors the police spread out on the pavement looking left and right. She could hear their voices over the traffic but not make out exactly what they were saying. One who had gone into the shop she’d been in emerged with the shop assistant she had been speaking to. The policeman was making notes as the young man spoke and Aysha worked out from his gestures he must have been asking him to look up and down the street. He shook his head and after a few more seconds of conversation went back inside the shop.

  It was the driver of the second vehicle, PC Alan Atkins, who spotted her. As per procedure he had stayed at the wheel ready to leave at speed should the need arise. As he watched the policemen fan along the pavement. The muffled silence gave him a feeling of detachment and he was scanning the scene rather as if it were a film set when the movement of Aysha’s newspaper caught his eye. Without moving his head his eyes swivelled right. She was looking at the police. No doubt about that. And she was trying to conceal herself.

  Atkins turned the key one notch and pressed down on the switch that opened the passenger side front window. “Sarge,” he spoke through it leaning over the gear stick as he did so. “Get in for a moment could you.” The sergeant who was pacing aimlessly on the pavement turned as Atkins opened the door. He got in and sat beside him.

  “Missed her. God knows how.”

  “Two o’clock. Outside the café. With the paper.” Atkins stayed looking ahead while the sergeant’s heard turned to the right.

  “Reckon that’s her?” he said

  “Well she hasn’t got a drink and she’s hiding behind that paper. Should we have a little chat?”

  “Just keep an eye on her. Tell me if she moves.”

  The sergeant picked up the radio.

  “D 167. At the Strand. Over.”

  “D 167.”

  “Get me the boss. Urgent.”

  After a two-second pause a female voice came through the crackle.

  “Yes sergeant?”

  “She’s gone. But we think we might have pinged her at a café across the road. Do you want me to detain or to follow?”

  “On her own?”

  “Yes. Young. Asian.”

  “Let me see how long it would take to get an undercover unit there. Hold on.”

  As the radio hissed the other police were opening the back doors of the car and getting in. For fear they would all look across simultaneously and alert the woman the driver said nothing.

  The radio came back to life.

  “I could have a team there to follow her in five minutes. Reckon she’ll stay that long?”

  The sergeant bit his lower lip. “Boys get out of the car and look busy. Search the bins. Anything.”

  “You what?”

  “Come on boys. Do it now.”

  As they clambered out of the car again he was back on the radio. “Yeah should be able to. But the thing is boss – she rang in didn’t she. So why would she scarper?”

  “We have spoken to the operator who says she hung up when she heard sirens coming. Looks like she had second thoughts. In which case she isn’t going to volunteer much. So yeah, let’s follow her. Good work, Sergeant. And ask the shop for their CCTV so you can confirm it’s her. And bag it as evidence obviously.”

  The sergeant smiled.

  “Thanks mate.” He said to the driver. “Nice one.”

  *****

  Charity arrived at the hospital not only with Rosie, but with her own five children in tow as well. They were all girls.

  “Rosie!”

  Natasha held out her arms to receive her daughter and clasped her tight to her chest, smothering her face in kisses.

  “Sorry about all the others,” Charity said as her children started to roam around the room, “Blimey! Monty said to bring the lot. Don’t know what he’s up to but mine is not to reason why.”

  Natasha tried to suppress a giggle. It’s Monty, she thought, in female form.

  She looked at Rosie and said: “What have you been feeding her?” An
d then blushing. “I mean ... not like that. I mean has she been eating?” And then giving up, “She looks so well. I am so grateful.”

  Natasha sat up so that her legs propped up the bed sheets. She held Rosie in her hands lifting her up and then letting her fall back against her thighs. Charity sat on the side of the bed and put her hand on Natasha’s. She spoke quietly.

  “She’s fine. Don’t worry. I’ve had plenty of practice.” She looked at the daughters. “I won’t tell you their names. You’ll only forget.”

  The eldest, perhaps seven years old, thought Natasha, was sitting on top of the hitherto neatly folded pile of clothes on the chair in the corner. She was holding and rocking a younger sister swaddled in white blankets and about the same age as Rosie. In front of her a toddler was trying to remove the medical notes from the clipboard attached to the railing at the foot of the bed. The remaining two, probably twins Natasha thought, were at the early stages of a fight over the fruit bowl.

  “Monty said you want to be discharged.” Charity reached over Natasha’s knees and stroked Rosie’s head. “It’s no problem looking after Rosie. Even at Christmas,” she gave a look of exaggerated exhaustion. “Even if she is a girl. After Monty called I’d rather hoped he would turn up with a boy. Just to see what they are like.”

  With the noise level increasing Charity kept her children occupied with a supply of books and toys produced from apparently inexhaustible pockets and bags. It was then Monty turned up. In a white coat.

  “Blimey! Where did you find that from?” Charity exclaimed.

  “Umpiring. Cricket, you know.”