“Very well. And while we are on the New Year’s party I wanted to discuss the catering arrangements …”
*****
Colonel Azam Khan’s wife, Maheen, was fretting in the garden when the invitation arrived. With the colonel having been away for so long it was becoming increasingly unkempt and whatever she said, the servant would never follow her instructions. Not that she had much idea what to tell him. As far as she could see even when the colonel was overseeing the tending of the garden every day, the whole thing looked a mess with randomly located plants and, his latest scheme, a ‘wild area’ where he seemed simply to do nothing but let the weeds take over. The lawn was not even flat and there were patches of soil where the lawnmower, hitting a bump shaved off the grass entirely.
The servant came into the garden with the envelope on a plate. “Just delivered by car madam. With British High Commission number plates.”
Intrigued, she took the envelope and examined it. The thick paper had an embossed emblem on the back and on the front, the colonel’s name written by hand. Inside, she judged, there was a stiffer than average card. Unable to resist the temptation she told the servant to leave and ripped it open. Her heart skipped a beat. The New Year’s Party at the High Commission. Her mind was racing ahead now. Ministers would be there, some generals too: just imagine what her friends would think. As long as Azam didn’t drink too much again. She looked at it once more to check she was right. Colonel (Rtd) Azam Khan and Mrs Khan. That would be her.
She called the Brig. He was just back from his round of golf played, since the colonel had been away, alone.
“How are you m’dear?”
“Has he been in touch yet?
“Not a word.”
“Why has he switched his phone off? It’s so annoying.”
The Brig had been wondering that too. “Probably didn’t take his charger.”
“Well I have to reach him now because we have been invited the British High Commission New Year’s party.”
“Have you indeed? What brought that on?”
“How do you mean?” Dear friend as he was, the Brig, she thought, could be so obscure sometimes. Almost rude. And then a dreadful thought occurred to her: “You haven’t been invited too have you?”
The Brig laughed: “No don’t worry. It’s all yours! New Year you say. I’ll send a message to him.”
“Could you? Thank you.” She never asked how Azam or the Brig managed to make things happen. She just accepted the fact that since they were senior army officers they could indeed get things done. Like sending a message to a Baluch village. “And do tell him to switch his phone on.”
The Brig put the phone down and pacing the hall, head bowed, pondered the matter. But whichever way he put it, it really did not make much sense. He racked his brain for any connection the colonel had had recently or in the distant past with British officials in Pakistan but came up blank. He wondered whether it was a way of the British saying sorry for the American attack on Mahmud and immediately dismissed the idea out of hand. But mysterious as it was, the message had to be conveyed. He called the sheikh’s Islamabad home and spoke to the senior man there.
At two o’clock, just five hours after the High Commissioner’s morning meeting, the colonel was telling the sheikh what had happened. “It’s odd,” the sheikh agreed, “decidedly odd. Let me deal with this divorce case and we’ll talk.”
The sheikh was sitting cross-legged on a large cushion made from a woven red carpet. The major and the colonel, neat and dishevelled respectively, were either side of him sitting on smaller cushions. The three of them leant their backs against a low wall and benefited from the shade of a tree. In front of them in the harsh sunlight there was a semicircle of over 50 tribesmen who had come from Dera Chamak and outlying villages to have various legal matters decided by the sheikh. Others had come just to watch. He always insisted on both parties to a dispute coming at the same time. He would hear each side of the story, discuss it there and then, in public, with his advisers, listen to anyone else who had an opinion and then made a decision. Since his judgements were quick, free and normally fair it was a system that suited everyone except the federally appointed judge who had been sent to a newly constructed courthouse in Dera Chamak three years earlier but who had not yet heard a single case or, as a consequence, received a single bribe. It was something that gave the sheikh great satisfaction: Chamaki tradition defeating corrupt modernity.
The trickiest cases he faced involved inheritance issues but in all the years he had been head of the tribe he and his advisers had always found a precedent to guide them. The tribe’s rules were, the sheikh liked to say, similar to the British constitution: unwritten but widely understood.
“So you want a divorce?”
In front of him there was a man who the colonel estimated at 60 years old. Besides a turban he was wearing baggy cotton trousers and a thick dark brown blanket draped over his shoulders. He looked poor. His unsmiling face lacked both teeth and hair. Folds of sunburnt skin hung off his scrawny arms.
“How many wives do you have?”
“Four,” he said defiantly as if any fewer would have been an insult to his manhood.
“And you are prepared to give her her due settlement?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How many goats do you have?”
“Six”
“Camels?”
He shook his head.
“Just goats?”
‘Yes.”
The sheikh looked at one of his advisers sitting in the semicircle to indicate that he wanted him to add up the value of the goats to divide the sum by two and then by four and to tell him how much the farmer would have to give his divorced wife. The colonel asked: “Why do you want to divorce her?”
“That’s up to him,” the sheikh said. “Nothing to do with us.”
But the farmer spoke anyway.
“I am getting old. I cannot look after all four.”
The colonel laughed. “Too tiring. Night after night.” The man nodded.
“How old are they?”
“The oldest is about my age and the youngest 21.”
“So you are divorcing the 21-year-old because she must be the most tiring,” the colonel said.
The farmer, suddenly animated, “No, no! I am divorcing the oldest.”
As the semicircle of men laughed, the farmer looked abashed.
“Well now’s the time.” the sheikh said. “Do you have a stone? Say it three times.”
The man held up a small pebble he had brought with him and threw it to the ground. “I divorce you!” he said.
“Where is she by the way? Today. Now?” the sheikh asked. “At your home or with her relatives?” Although he did not rigorously enforce the point, technically the rules demanded that the woman be moved to her family before the divorce was formalised.
“With her relatives. I divorce you!” he threw down the pebble a second time, picked it up but with all eyes now on him as the crucial moment approached, he hesitated.
“Go on then. It must be three times.”
But the farmer just stood up and walking away said. “I am not sure.”
The sheikh sighed. “Timewaster.” And then raising his voice he spoke to the people in front of him. “That’s it for today. If I have not dealt with your case come back tomorrow.”
As the men stood up and dispersed, the sheikh accepted a glass of water from one of his servants and turned to his right. “So Major, what do you make of it? The invitation?”
“It suggests they are just fishing. I agree it’s odd though.”
“And still nothing you can think of Colonel? No connection with the High Commission?”
“Well it just did occur to me that maybe they saw the references in the press to my little difference with the chief. Maybe they think I might be upset or outspoken or otherwise worth knowing.”
“Yes, that’s possible Colonel. Never underestimate British cunning. Anyway I guess we wi
ll never know. By New Year we should be heading for Karachi, ready to welcome him home.”
“My poor wife,” the colonel said, “she’ll be furious.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I can hardly think of a big investigation recently where CCTV hasn’t had a major role to play.” -- Andy Hayman, head of Counter Terrorism Command, 2009
09:00, Christmas Day, Manchester
Joan Williams combined ambition and frustration in about equal measure. She was 24 years old, single and, if the number of Mancunians showing an interest in her was anything to go by, attractive too. After university she had gone back home and written about society weddings for the Oldham Chronicle for as long as she could take the boredom. Which was two years. Determined to do better she headed for the bright lights of Manchester and the leading local commercial radio station, Piccadilly Radio. She loved it, turning out two or three news pieces a day about everything from rock bands visiting the city to shopping trolleys in the canals. To her it was all the same; the important thing was being on air.
After six months she offered to work free for the BBC North Newsroom. When it needed cover because its own correspondents were ill or on holiday she was put on the rota as standby back up. The problem was that if nothing happened she wasn’t called in. And nothing ever seemed to happen.
Until now.
The moment she heard the first radio news bulletin reporting the Bradford bombing she didn’t hesitate. Grabbing a change of clothes and a make-up bag she leapt into the VW Golf her father had bought her and headed up north. By the time her mobile went she was already nearly there.
“Joan?”
She looked in her rear view mirror checking for police and seeing it was clear put the handset to her ear.
“Speaking.”
“BBC North here. I can see you are down on standby today. This is the duty newsroom editor by the way. There seems to be something going on up in Bradford and we were wondering if you could come in.”
It was why she hadn’t called.
“I’m already on my way.”
“But we need you here really. We are trying to send the main correspondents up to Bradford and just need to you to cover in the office.”
“Well I am already there. Just about.”
“Already in Bradford?”
“That’s right. Nearly, anyway.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
Which is why 40 minutes later she was standing outside St Joseph’s Church doing live voice reports on her mobile as she waited for a TV crew and satellite truck. By the time they arrived she knew exactly what she needed. She asked the truck technicians to set up so that she could do live reports with the church in view behind her. She had already persuaded the churchwarden to tell her where the girl’s parents lived and, having filmed the bombsite, she sent the crew to film some shots of the home. “They won’t talk yet so don’t even bother with that,” she said. “Just film the house and get back here.” She also called BBC North and asked for some archive pictures of previous riots in Bradford. Within an hour she was watching her cut piece being broadcast:
The explosion went off without warning.
Officials say it was a suicide attack.
9-year-old Becky Cowling was handing out song sheets for a special children’s Christmas Day service when she died.
Earlier today she was in this house opening her Christmas stocking.
That was before she was murdered on Christmas Day.
Some in Bradford will mourn. But history tells us others will react with violence.
Joan Williams, BBC News, Bradford.
*****
Jaz was driving out of London on the A34 when he saw the cooling towers at Didcot. They were not in the plan. But they were tempting. The major and the sheikh had both said that the attack would be more effective if it was in multiple locations. But complexity added risks.
Jaz headed towards them. Just for a look.
The scale of the towers took him by surprise. Mature trees growing at their base looked like shrubs beside the curved grey brickwork. The clouds of white steam belching out of the towers hung in the air for miles before dispersing. The whole plant was surrounded by razor wire held taut between metal stanchions. Jaz thought that even if he were standing on the roof of his car it looked impossible to climb. Anyway, he’d be on CCTV, quite probably setting off alarms too.
He was just about to return to the motorway when he saw the vulnerability. The plant seemed impregnable. But there was no need to go in. Because to his left and to his right, was the product. The high power cables held up by pylons and stretching out into the countryside as far as he could see.
He drove further around the perimeter. And there, in a field, utterly unprotected, stood a massive pylon bearing the weight of six thick metal cables, twisted like rope. He scanned the area checking to see if there were any houses or dog-walkers in sight. It was all clear.
Jaz parked the car, took one of the remaining bombs and carried it to the pylon using some woodland as cover. As the huge steel legs climbed into the sky above him he tried to work out the best place to put it. The higher the better, he reckoned, as there would be a greater chance of the leg buckling and bringing the lines down. On tiptoe he held the bomb with one hand on the inside of the steel structure and strapped tape around it with the other. The job done he stood back wondering whether one would be enough. Maybe not. He went to fetch another and strapped it next to the first. All set for three o’clock the next morning. Seventeen and a half hours from now.
He walked back through the woodland, climbed the fence, and as a car drove by, pressed the remote lock button on his key fob. Then he took a look at the sat nav to find his way back to the A34.
*****
It had been a tradition for many years that Susie Evans, farmer’s daughter, mother of three and wife of electrical engineer John Evans, went to see her sister, Cathy for a morning sherry on Christmas morning before cooking lunch. And it was her habit, having had three, or maybe four, glasses to drive back home in her battered Fiat Punto on the small country lanes the police tended not to bother with. It was, after all, the breathalyser season.
When she drove past a man climbing out of Horton Wood she was a bit puzzled. It was an odd place for a person to be on Christmas Day. Of course his dog might have run in there but she couldn’t see one. And he looked pretty rough. Unshaven. Maybe he was sleeping there. She made a mental note to mention it to Robert Jones, the farmer whose wood it was. For all she knew he’d have pheasants in there.
When she glanced in her mirror trying to get another look at him the hazard lights of a silver car by the side of the road flashed briefly. He must have just unlocked it and from what she could make out was kneeling by the rear number plate. And someone with a car would hardly be sleeping rough.
And that unresolved thought was still in her mind when she returned home to find her husband effing, blinding and putting on his work boots. Fearful of the inevitable recriminations, he’d hoped to slip away before she came back.
“What on earth are you doing?” she said.
“I just left a note. Work just bloody well called.”
“But it’s Christmas Day.”
“Sorry love. All hands to the deck. It’s a security scare. Orders from on high, they said. We have to search the whole site. Put the lunch on though, I’ll be back soon enough.”
Her face reddened and he was bracing himself for an onslaught when he noticed her expression change.
“What is it?”
She thought for a moment. “Nothing. Well probably noth ...”
“Go on. Speak your mind love.”
When the prime minister chaired COBRA a few hours later it was generally agreed by those present that when he called on the home secretary for an update on the search of the national infrastructure he did not only look slightly smug. He sounded it too.
*****
“For once,” the police commissioner said, striding into
the 2nd floor control room in New Scotland Yard, “we’re ahead of him.” He was with Gold Commander Anna Mackenzie who waved her pass at a pad on the wall as they walked. The lock made a loud click and she pushed open the door to let him in.
He looked over the rows of uniformed officers called in from home and now sitting at screens. Many were wearing headphones with microphones curling round their mouths. He walked over to the biggest flat screens and watched as a policewoman fast-forwarded through some CCTV images of traffic on a road.
“Main access to Didcot,” she said. “He’ll be here right enough. He’s got a silver Mondeo.”
“Sir, something from West Yorkshire.” The commissioner saw a policeman at a desk two rows back trying to catch his attention. He went over.
“Thought you should know that the forensics from Bradford is showing more victims. Maybe two suicide bombers at each site. It’s odd though. One DNA sample has a hit on the database, but the match is a bloke who according to his family, is currently in St Thomas’ Hospital. Recovering from an op.”
“What the hell does that mean? Still in the hospital?”
“Yup. Well he can’t be though, can he? Must be a false reading.”
“Got him!” A crowd gathered around the policewoman as she played the image in slow motion. Jaz himself was just a shadowy blur but the car number plates were clear.
“How long ago was that?”
“About two hours ago.” As she spoke she was uploading the plate’s details into the ANPR system. “This should only take a minute.”
The Commissioner watched her work.
“And he was here,” she pointed at the screen excited again. “Just short of Birmingham. She looked at the time codes on the screen. That was under an hour ago. ” She looked up as if ready for praise but, turning back to her screen, her face clouded. “That’s strange. He’s coming up as being in Edinburgh two hours ago. Just can’t be.”
“False plates,” said one of the officers standing in the group around the screen. “The Birmingham one is the one we want.”
TARGET BRITAIN: a political thriller Page 30
