When Shadows Collide (An Arik Bar Nathan Novel Book 1)

by Nathan Ronen

  “Keep an eye on this name that Masha Kramer provided,” Arik asked. “It could be just an immigrant who’s here to work and forged his entry visa into the UK, but we don’t have any other intel at the moment, and I want you to track this guy closely so we can eliminate him as a suspect.”

  “Roger, Control,” Tal Ronen said. “I’ve got all the details on Ali Hassan Baraqat, including a photo Masha sent me. He’s inside at the moment. We saw him come to work at the Grand Mosque, at ten to nine.”

  Arik was pleased. Finally, leads to link various aspects of the operation were popping up here and there. The time had now come to seek the special angle that would help him solve the riddle. He wanted to get his hands on one of those pigeons as it flew east from the Iranian Embassy.

  Suddenly, he remembered once watching a show on the National Geographic channel about a competition between Mongolian warriors regarding the use of falcons and hawks to catch birds. Falconry was the use of falcons or other diurnal birds of prey for hunting birds and mammals. In the Altai Mountains in Mongolia, a golden eagle was used for hunting purposes to this day.

  Arik went to YouTube and typed “Falconry.” Within minutes, he was watching an episode of the BBC series about Mongolia. During the hunt, the falcon was freed so that it would soar and circle upwards. When it was located at peak height above the falconer, the falcon dived at its prey from above, its wings held against its body. That way, it attained immense speed and killed its prey on impact. The moment the appropriate prey appeared, the cover was removed from the falcon’s eyes and it was released into the air. In order to prevent it from ripping the prey to shreds, the falcon’s claws could be covered with a type of metal or plastic bead. In any case, sometimes the falcon’s collision with its prey could kill it.

  Arik smiled to himself. He finally had an idea how to catch the carrier pigeon. Perhaps, that way, he could crack the enigma of the Iranian Colonel Rizkawi’s secret message. If he succeeded, his chances of catching up with arch-terrorist Iman al-Uzbeki would dramatically improve.

  “Get me McBrady.”

  Chapter 53

  Heathrow Airport, London

  Three short, burly Mongolian men with slanted eyes and high cheekbones disembarked from the Aero Mongolia plane. All of them were dressed in traditional Mongolian garb, including a deel, a long, gray customary Mongolian overcoat with an embroidered hem and a cloth belt decorated with traditional embroidery, a Mongolian sheep-herder fur hat with raised earflaps, and tall leather boots. The three men were very tired after a long flight from the city of Altai in eastern Mongolia to London.

  Each of them was holding a large cage with air holes in its rear. They refused the flight crew’s request to store them in the plane’s luggage compartment. Someone had paid for an additional adjacent seat in business class for the “additional passenger,” who was, in fact, a golden eagle from the Altai Mountains in eastern Mongolia. The cage was covered with black cloth, and occasional strange squawking emanated from it. In order to induce birds of prey to act immediately, they needed to be starved.

  Each of the falconry experts was carrying an official invitation from the City of London, signed by the municipal veterinarian. They had a ten-day work visa for purposes of a task officially defined as “exterminating a pigeon infestation in Kensington Palace,” due to the damage the pigeons caused to the stone statues in the palace gardens. London’s pigeons had long become a health hazard and were sometimes called “flying rats.” The municipality fought them everywhere, including in Trafalgar Square.

  Next to the plane’s jet bridge, Tal Ronen was waiting for the three Mongolians, accompanied by the City of London’s chief veterinarian. They were ushered directly into a City of London van and driven to an inn located near the Kensington neighborhood. This was not a common occurrence. The British government was strict about upholding six-month quarantines for animals arriving from abroad. Without the special permit provided by British Security Service Director David McBrady to the municipal veterinarian, the team of falconers and their birds would not have been granted entry. Of course, no one was asking questions. The City of London’s veterinarian had been told that it was a matter of national security and had signed a confidentiality agreement.

  ***

  Twenty miles away from the airport, in East London, a Kidon team was waiting for the concealed workers toiling in the secret storage space within the mosque basement to finish their shift. At dawn, the diggers surfaced, bearing bags of soil they loaded onto the gardening service van and drove away.

  The Kidon team warriors broke into the building the moment Hezbollah’s digging crew departed, first ascertaining that the doors in the basement were not booby-trapped. They came in with a kit of chemical markers allowing them to identify and compare any materials found.

  Identification would entail knowing the chemical composition of the material analyzed. They took samples that would later be identified in a private forensics lab. The storage room was found to contain two tons of granulated phosphate in bags, bags of calcium ammonium nitrate, one and a half gallons of concentrated bleach, liquid nitric acid in reinforced glass containers wrapped in thick aluminum foil, hydrogen tanks, hydrogen peroxide, white benzine, four cans of diesel fuel, bags of granulated ammonia fertilizer, and bags of triacetone triperoxide (TATP). In a separate pile were bags full of nuts and bolts, intended to increase the damage inflicted by the explosives.

  In wooden crates, they found explosive blocks manufactured by Iran’s military industry, as well as detonators, a detonating cord, remote-controlled cellular activating switches, 12-volt batteries that were twice as powerful as regular batteries, boosters and detonation wires, packs of electrical tape intended for explosives, cutting tools, and other implements.

  All of these were the basic materials for manufacturing the powerful bombs that were Iman al-Uzbeki’s specialty. The force also photographed six explosive vests that were ready for action, loaded with powerful Semtex76 plastic explosives. Dozens of metal ball bearings and screws were embedded within this material, whose texture resembled Play-Doh.

  Obviously, someone who worked near the mosque, or perhaps even in the mosque itself, was using the secret space in the basement as a lab in order to manufacture improvised explosive charges. Based on the quantity of raw material, the target was clearly a particularly large one. The waiting explosive vests indicated the existence of suicide bombers, who had apparently already been recruited and were currently undergoing mental preparation in safe houses located in Muslim areas of London and its environs.

  The team members photographed everything, took samples of powders and liquids, which they stored in forensics sample baggies, and left the site without leaving behind any trace of their presence.

  Arik Bar-Nathan’s instructions had been clear: “Go in, take photos and samples, get out.”

  Unlike the police, whose goal was immediate thwarting of crimes, intelligence agencies were patient, curious organizations, wanting to know in which direction the plan was going, and who was involved.

  ***

  London is a liberal, multicultural city, the site of various festivals, and a source of attraction for diverse characters. Therefore, no one found it strange when, the following morning, the three Mongolians set out in their traditional garb in the company of a Mongolian-speaking escort and translator and spread out in Kensington Park.

  Tourists who stopped next to them and asked to take their picture as they held their eagles received a bashful smile in response. Police officers stationed next to them took care to disperse these curious onlookers. Three Kidon agents, tasked with supervising them at the launch sites east of the Iranian Embassy in London, stood with solemn expressions some distance away from the falconers, waiting for operating instructions from the command post on the other end of the large park.

  Around ten a.m., the boy with the cage arrived at the entrance to the Iranian Emba
ssy as he did every week. An initial inquiry conducted by Masha Kramer had revealed that the boy and his father’s work consisted of delivering merchandise to the market and receiving generous pay from one of Ali Baba’s employees in return for the deliveries. They were unknowing accomplices, often referred to by the professionals as “useful idiots.”

  An hour later, Arik was watching the feed from the camera on the roof of his mobile tactical HQ, tracking Colonel Rizkawi’s profile as he stood on the roof, releasing two brown pigeons.

  “They’re on their way,” Arik announced on the two-way radio. At that exact moment, the three Mongolians, stationed at various points east of the embassy building, released their eagles. Reports began to stream in within several minutes.

  “Control, this is zero-four. The eagle caught a pigeon, but I’m not sure it’s brown. It’s gray.”

  “Control, this is zero-six. The eagle caught a brown pigeon. It’s got a message tube on its leg. But the pigeon is dead. The eagle is devouring it as we speak.”

  “Zero-six, get back to me with the message tube,” Arik requested. “Leave the Mongolian, and get back to him later,”

  “Control, this is zero-three. The eagle came back with a squirrel,” a third location reported.

  His hands agitated, Arik opened the message tube, a tiny aluminum cylinder, and retrieved a tight scroll of cigarette rolling paper, containing a message written in Farsi, in Arabic letters.

  He photographed the contents of the note and sent the photo in an encrypted WhatsApp message to the Office’s Intelligence Department in order to decipher its meaning. Within less than a minute, he received the translation. “Another helping will be waiting for you in the Serpentine ice cream kiosk. Ask for the spice packet that Aisha’s mother sent.”

  Arik smiled in satisfaction. However, in the meantime, he was facing a severe problem. He had to return the pigeon and the message tube to the dovecot on the roof of Ali Baba’s home in order not to raise any suspicion. However, the brown pigeon had been devoured. He needed to find a quick replacement for it, tie a tube containing the original message to its leg, and place it in the dovecot the Kidon team had located that morning. It needed to be done quickly, before ‘Ali Baba’ and his ‘robbers’ returned to their headquarters in the Bethnal Green neighborhood.

  He asked Tal Ronen to assign the job to one of the team heads, certain it would be executed without a hitch.

  * * *

  76Semtex is a powerful plastic explosive. It is popular among terrorists because it is relatively difficult to detect and easy to obtain.

  Chapter 54

  Bayswater Road Art Market, London

  On Sunday morning, Iman al-Uzbeki’s cell phone rang once and then went silent.

  A minute later, the phone rang twice before growing silent.

  A minute later, his cell phone rang three times and went silent.

  Aisha wanted to walk over and answer it, but her ‘husband’s’ glare froze her in her spot.

  Iman al-Uzbeki entered his bedroom and locked the door. From a locked drawer in the closet, he retrieved an old Nokia 6230 cell phone that had been dismantled, inserted a SIM card, then installed a battery and turned on the device.

  Less than two minutes later, the new phone rang.

  Ali Baba’s familiar voice was succinct and businesslike. “In an hour, in the usual spot.”

  Iman al-Uzbeki didn’t answer. He had all the information he needed. They met every Sunday at eleven a.m. in Speakers’ Corner, at the northeastern edge of Hyde Park in London. Speakers’ Corner was the traditional site for debates that were open to the general public, held every Sunday. There were always crowds assembled there, and the roaming tourists listened to the speakers lecturing for or against various topics.

  Ali Baba was standing there, listening to the activists passionately defending Britain’s Brexit, while the audience shouted out interjections. Suddenly, he sensed that someone behind him was looking at him. He thrust his hand deep into a hidden pocket of the Pakistani-style shalwar he was wearing, grabbing his pistol. He then turned slowly and saw two women wearing blue burkas, standing motionlessly, seemingly listening to the speaker. One of them was short and overweight, while the other, who was slender and tall, was swaying uncomfortably on her heels.

  Ali began to stride out of the park, heading west. He walked along Bayswater Road, where a large open-air art fair was held every week. The park fence and a steel lattice featured giant colorful paintings. He paused next to a large picture with a political theme, which dealt with the kidnapping of little girls by the African Boko Haram terrorist organization, which turned them into sex slaves. He began to chat with the black artist when he noticed the tall, thin woman in the burka stepping hesitantly in her high-heeled shoes, until she stopped to his right.

  “April tenth,” the woman said in Urdu, in a throaty voice.

  “Tora Bora,” Ali Baba completed the identification password. It was one of several combinations known only to the two of them.

  They began to walk side by side at a slow, moderate pace, looking at the paintings and talking amongst themselves. To an unknowing observer, they looked like a husband and wife in contemporary London.

  “How are our people?” Iman al-Uzbeki asked.

  “Everything’s going as planned,” his deputy replied. “All the materials on the list were transported tonight and are already waiting in the new storeroom in your mosque. We have cars, and we already have a few volunteers willing to be shahids. One of them, accused by her family of violating the family’s honor, came to me from the large mosque in Birmingham. The mufti promised her to clear her name, to turn her into a shahida, and to elevate her family’s name if she agrees to die in the name of Allah. Our friends from Hamas in Gaza have sent us a few Jihadi suicide bombers that we can rely on, since their families will get plenty of money if they become shahids. All in all, we’ve started to train eight potential suicide bombers, so we have a few in reserve in case someone suddenly gets cold feet just before zero hour. We already have six suits that were sewn here; all we have to do is insert the Semtex and the operating mechanism.”

  “Are you receiving everything Colonel Rizkawi promised?” Iman asked.

  “Like clockwork. Every two weeks, he sends me a message with the pigeon telling me where to go in order to receive the money or the materials needed for our operating systems. He changes the location every time. Today we’re picking up a package with 50,000 pounds, not far from here.”

  They walked west along bustling Bayswater Street and entered Hyde Park again through Carriage Drive, the street bisecting the park in the direction of the Serpentine, the large lake at its center. About fifty yards behind them, another female figure, short and plump, wearing a full blue burka, was tracking them.

  After twenty minutes of walking, while Iman sweated under the oppressive burka, they arrived at the Serpentine Galleries, partially designed by architect Zaha Hadid. Behind the building was a roofed structure resembling a large white tent. It was a stylish restaurant named Chucs Café Serpentine. Both structures were close to the bank of the lake.

  Iman and Ali Baba entered the restaurant and sat in the balcony overlooking the park and the lake. A dark-skinned waiter walked over to them and immediately asked in Arabic, “What would you like to drink?”

  “Some juice for the lady and non-alcoholic Heineken beer for me,” Ali Baba replied in English.

  When they received their order, Iman had a hard time drinking the glass of juice, which arrived without a straw. He found it difficult to raise the hijab covering his face. Ali Baba burst out in a peal of laughter.

  “Why are you laughing?” Iman was angry. “I don’t understand how women can walk around with that rag on their face, and with the high-heeled shoes. It’s killing me.”

  “Wait for me for a few minutes. There’s a package here I have to pick up,” Al
i Baba said with a smile, disappearing inside the kitchen. He returned a few minutes later with a green backpack.

  “I checked the package in the restroom,” he said. “There’s 50,000 pounds in here. I need to pay assorted team leaders to rent apartments and vehicles, buy food and pay for other expenses. How much do you need?”

  “Two thousand will be enough for me,” Iman said. “You need the money for your teams.”

  Ali Baba picked up a cloth napkin from one of the tables and went into the bathroom again with the backpack. When he emerged, he was holding a rolled-up napkin with the money inside. Iman concealed it in the depths of his burka.

  “Is there anything else I need to know?” Iman asked, glancing warily to both sides.

  “Yes,” his deputy replied. “I heard from a reliable source that the Israelis are here, headed by Arik Bar-Nathan.”

  Iman froze in his place, overcome by a wave of fury.

  “That son of a bitch!” he gritted out angrily.

  “My source tells me they’ve hired a suite at a residential hotel in Whitechapel and established a command post there.”

  Iman al-Uzbeki’s heart skipped a beat. If the Israelis are in my turf, in the same neighborhood, maybe I should relocate? he asked himself. It was true that even Ali Baba did not know where he was living. But he did not trust anyone, especially Iran’s leaky intelligence services.

  “Are you sure?” al-Uzbeki asked in disbelief. He had mentally composed multiple scenarios of defending against British intelligence services. However, he had not predicted the Israelis’ arrival.

  “I have sources within the British security service that warned me. I think it’s time for you to split,” Ali Baba said, despite knowing that a man like Iman al-Uzbeki would not flee the battlefield. For someone like him, it was a challenge, a matter of masculine honor.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll manage,” his commander said. “We’ll handle the small attacks like we talked. Prepare the suicide shahids for me. Just make sure the six exploding vests with the plastic explosives and the activation mechanism are ready. We’re not canceling anything!” he continued, protesting angrily, spitting the words from his mouth like a cobra spitting venom in its victim’s eyes. “The Israelis’ arrival only challenges me more. We’ll speed up the timeline. When the time comes, I’ll let you know, and execution will take place within a few days. On that day, I want you to take over a catering truck, one of those that brings food to MI5 HQ’s cafeteria. It’s better if it happens when it’s on its way to deliver food, and they’re expecting it. We’ll inform them that the truck is late due to a little accident we’ll stage. I’ll meet up with you and we’ll load the bomb, concealing it in those big heated serving containers like the catering companies use. You prepare those containers accordingly. In order to increase the effect, we’ll also hide plastic bags containing diesel fuel and ammonia inside. It did the trick wonderfully during the 1995 Oklahoma City attack on the federal building.”