Rip Tide

by Stella Rimington

  Chapter 60

  ‘We’ve lost them.’

  Lamb’s voice came over the radio just as Fontana pulled up at the back entrance to the park. By coming this way, he’d managed to avoid the worst of the traffic. ‘no access to concert’ read a makeshift notice stuck on the gate. A couple of stewards wearing armbands were directing hopefuls around to the other side of the park.

  The radio crackled and Lamb’s voice came through again: ‘Both targets were together outside the entrance gates two minutes ago, but we lost them in the crowd.’

  ‘Damn!’ said Fontana, banging his hand on the steering wheel in frustration.

  ‘Come on,’ said Liz. ‘Everyone’s looking for them. Let’s go and help.’

  They left the car by the entrance. Fontana flashed his badge at the stewards and one of them opened the gate to let them in. The combined noise of the music and the audience was ear-splitting, even here behind the stage. Liz could see the vast crowd gathered in front of it, swaying to the music as the girls began to sing. A group of roadies stood smoking by the short flight of steps that led up to the rear of the stage. As a policeman walked towards them, waving his arm, they ground their cigarettes out in the grass.

  Fontana was on his radio, talking to the crowd-control officer in charge of the concert, who was saying, ‘Four armed officers in the front few rows, ready to intercept anyone trying to reach the stage. The others combing the crowd. All uniform have the description of the suspect and the girl.’

  The officer went on, ‘We’ve taken the decision to let the concert carry on. There’s a serious risk the crowd will panic and stampede for the exit if we make any announcement or try to stop it now.’

  Fontana shook his head. ‘I’m sure he’s right,’ he said to Liz. ‘But I’m glad it’s his call and not mine.’

  From where she now stood, by the side of the open-air stage, Liz had a clear view of the crowd. At the front it was overwhelmingly female, young Asian girls happily singing along with the group. Many of them were dancing to the music; a few sat on the shoulders of their friends, waving their hands from side to side in time to the rhythm. Finding anyone in this throng was like looking for a needle in a haystack. The only hope was that a single male figure would stick out in this predominantly female crowd. But the audience stretched almost to Stratford Road, and further back there were couples and families. If Tahira and Malik were still together and towards the back of the crowd, finding them would be well-nigh impossible. Liz did a rough calculation and reckoned there must be five thousand people in the park.

  And then, incredibly, she saw Tahira. She was standing by herself to one side, just outside the ropes that cordoned off the audience enclosure, near a huge television screen. She was holding something in her hand, and looking to one side. There was no sign of Malik.

  ‘I see the girl,’ Liz shouted at Fontana over the din. ‘Tell your men Malik will be on his own.’

  She ran along the edge of the vast crowd, outside the ropes. No one paid any attention to her; all eyes were glued to the stage as Banditti began to sing a new song. The noise was deafening, and when Liz shouted at Tahira as she drew closer, it was like shouting into the mouth of a gale. Liz could see the girl clearly now; she was holding her mobile, looking as if she were trying to make a call. When Liz reached her, out of breath and panting, Tahira still hadn’t seen her. She tapped her on the shoulder and Tahira looked up in astonishment.

  ‘I was just ringing you,’ she said.

  ‘Where’s Malik?’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  Fontana joined them as Liz asked urgently, ‘Did he leave the park?’ Tahira shook her head. ‘He started to, but then he moved into the crowd.’ She pointed at the semi-hysterical mass of girls.

  Fontana shook his head. ‘How are we going to find him in that?’

  ‘You might spot him,’ said Tahira. ‘He’s wearing a baseball cap now. He put it on when we got inside the gates. It’s orange.’

  Fontana began shouting into his radio while Liz scanned the audience. Her heart sank as she scanned a sea of pulsating bodies and countless flashes of orange – baseball caps, and Chick Peas T-shirts emblazoned on the back with the band’s bright orange logo.

  Then she felt a sharp nudge in her ribs. ‘I can see him,’ cried an agitated Tahira. ‘He’s taken his cap off. Look, he’s that one there, pushing through the crowd.’ She gestured towards the middle of the audience, about halfway between where they stood and the stage. Liz peered at the waving throng, then she suddenly spotted a bareheaded man, moving through the crowd, slowly working his way towards the stage. It was Malik.

  ‘Look, can you see him?’ Liz said to Fontana, lifting her arm to point to the figure forcing his way through the onlookers.

  Fontana stared and stared, then suddenly said, ‘Got him!’ He spoke into his radio, and listened to the response crackling back. He shook his head in frustration. ‘There’s no one near him. We’re going to lose him again.’

  But Malik was clearly visible now. He was no longer heading for the stage, but was moving slowly towards the rope cordoning off their side of the crowd. Fontana was on the radio again, giving a running commentary. ‘He’s coming out of the crowd. Left-hand side facing the stage . . . halfway down . . .’

  He turned to Liz. ‘He must have found he couldn’t get through all those people.’

  They stood watching, the distant figure becoming clearer with every second that passed. Two armed policeman came running from the side of the stage just as Malik – distinguishable now in his suit jacket – pushed his way out of the heaving mob of girls and started to run along beside the rope towards the stage.

  Then he saw the two policemen ahead of him and hesitated. One hand moved towards his jacket pocket, and for a moment Liz thought he was going to blow himself up right there. One of the policemen shouted at him – Liz could see his lips working furiously. His colleague was crouching, his weapon held in both hands, aimed and ready to fire.

  But Malik must have changed his mind. His hand came out of his pocket again and he turned round, now facing their little group of three, less than a hundred yards away. He started running towards them, moving awkwardly in his heavy jacket.

  Liz heard Tahira shriek, and Fontana stepped in front to shield them. The two policemen sprinting after Malik were catching up fast. Both had their weapons out now, and both were shouting – though with the music so loud there was no chance Malik would hear them.

  He was now only fifty yards away from Liz and Tahira, but the two Special Branch men were very close behind. They were trying to get into a position where they could fire away from the crowd and avoid hitting Liz and her two companions.

  Malik was within thirty yards now and suddenly his hand moved quickly into his jacket again. Both policemen fired. The Glock pistols made a flat metallic noise, hardly audible over the beat of the Chick Peas’ backing band.

  As Tahira screamed Malik fell, flat on his face. He lay unmoving on the ground as blood seeped slowly out of his head.

  Chapter 61

  Amazingly, virtually no one in the crowd had paid any attention to what was going on at the side of the park. The armed officers quickly put away their weapons, as uniformed police arrived to shield the body from view, and gently but firmly move the crowd away from the ropes, telling them that someone had had an accident. People were happy to comply since they were far more interested in the music being played on stage than in someone who’d been taken ill.

  Whatever explosives there were beneath Malik’s jacket, the man was not alive to detonate them. But within minutes the bomb squad arrived, coming in discreetly from the back of the ground while the police finished erecting a tent over the body and placing a cordon round the area. The concert was nearly over now, and people were beginning to drift away from the back of the crowd. Soon the rest of the audience would be on the move, shepherded out by the police; then the park would be closed while the forensic team moved in.

  Liz walked w
ith Tahira to the back entrance where they sat in Fontana’s car watching as various police units came and went. Tahira had said nothing since Malik was shot. She was shaking and was obviously in deep shock. Suddenly she started to cry – big shuddering sobs. Liz put an arm round her. ‘You were very brave,’ she said, meaning every word.

  Tahira was trying to speak through her sobs, ‘He was heading straight for me. He wanted to kill me. He wanted to kill all of us.’

  Liz had no doubt that Malik had decided to take them with him once he saw he couldn’t get near the stage. Ten more seconds and he would have succeeded. But that wouldn’t help Tahira. So she said gently, ‘You know death didn’t mean the same thing to him as it does to you and me.’

  Tahira looked up, wiping her streaming eyes with the back of her hand. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘For Malik this was only a temporary world, a brief stop on the way to Paradise. That’s why he wanted to kill himself. Death is welcomed by someone who thinks they’re going to another, better life.’

  ‘But we would all have died! And he said he cared about me. He told me I should always remember that. He said I was special . . .’

  ‘I know. And he meant it. But he also believed you would meet again – in this other, better world of his.’

  Tahira nodded. ‘That’s what he said – that I might not see him again here, but that he was certain we would meet in future.’

  ‘Yes. I am sure that’s what he thought,’ said Liz, and Tahira seemed satisfied by this explanation.

  But Liz wasn’t. From where she sat in the car, she could see down the side of the stage to the park. It was a sad sight on that late-summer afternoon: the litter-strewn field, the stage being dismantled, and two white-coated orderlies lifting a stretcher into the back of an ambulance.

  Her mind was full of questions. If Malik really had cared for Tahira, would he have wanted to murder her? It certainly looked as if he’d intended to. But did he actually believe he would see her again in Paradise? As far as Liz understood, the celestial rewards were reserved for martyrs – and though Malik might have considered himself a martyr, it was hard to see how his killing Tahira would have made her one as well.

  No, he must just have seen her, like the Chick Peas and everyone else at the concert – men, women and children – as a sacrifice, to be killed in pursuit of his objective. And what was that objective anyway? Was it his personal desire to become a martyr, or did he really think of himself as a warrior in a justified war, defending his religion?

  Yet he’d had more than half a chance to do what he’d set out to do. He could have exploded his suicide belt at any minute – he’d had plenty of time, even after he’d spotted the armed police coming towards him. The Chick Peas would have escaped – he hadn’t got close enough to the stage – but he could have killed dozens of ‘Infidels’, mainly silly teenage girls, having fun at a harmless entertainment that he disliked.

  So why hadn’t he? Why didn’t he pull the cord as soon as he thought he would be captured or shot? If he was the loyal jihadi that he seemed to have been, why hadn’t he gone ahead and achieved his aim?

  It didn’t make sense. All these contradictions – to kill but not to kill; to kill a friend but not to kill strangers. There’d never be an answer now. Not with Malik lying dead on a stretcher.

  There was only one thing left to do – look after the living. Liz put her arm round Tahira’s shoulders again as Fontana arrived back at the car. This girl still had a life ahead of her.

  Chapter 62

  ‘Liz around?’

  Peggy looked up to find Kanaan Shah standing in front of her desk. ‘No, she’s away for a few days. Holiday.’

  ‘Well deserved.’

  ‘I’ll say. How’s it going with you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. I’ve just come from seeing Salim and Jamila. The Boatmans. They’re adjusting pretty well, all things considered. Jamila would love to see Liz sometime.’

  ‘Liz said she’d visit her as soon as she gets back.’

  ‘Good. I’ve got something here for you both to read. The last sentence is mind-boggling.’

  He handed a ragged piece of newsprint to Peggy. It was a cutting from a recent edition of the Birmingham Asian News:

  Local cleric Abdi Bakri has strenuously denied police allegations that he masterminded a plot to detonate an explosive device at a pop concert. A 27-year-old man identified as Malik Sukari, a native-born resident of Birmingham, was shot dead by Special Branch officers during the concert, featuring the all-girl Indian group, the Chick Peas.

  Labelled a suicide bomber by police, Sukari was found to have been wearing a belt containing enough explosive, in the words of one officer, ‘to blow up half of Birmingham’.

  Somalia-born Bakri, founder of the New Springfield Mosque, claimed he was the victim of a smear campaign designed to link him not only with Sukari but also with four British Pakistanis, all members of his Birmingham mosque, who were recently arrested during the attempted hijacking of an Athens-registered tanker off the Horn of Africa.

  Speaking to the Asian News, Bakri said, ‘I had no knowledge that these young men were going to Somalia and did not assist them in any way. As for Sukari, he was acting entirely on his own, and I do not condone what he did – though when the Western powers are daily killing our Muslim brothers all over the world, actions like his must be expected.’

  Bakri claimed to have been a victim of religious persecution as a young man in Somalia, and said he would resist any efforts by British authorities to deport him there.

  Bakri also announced that he planned to ask for political asylum from the UK government.

  In the UCSO Athens office, Anastasia was typing a letter for Claude Rameau when Falana walked across to her desk. It was Thursday afternoon, the usual time for the two girls to discuss which club to go to on Saturday night. But Anastasia could see something else was on Falana’s mind – her dark eyes were wide with excitement.

  ‘I’ve just seen Elena. She said a policeman’s been to see Mr Berger,’ she whispered.

  Anastasia sighed. ‘It’ll just be about poor Maria Galanos again, I bet.’ The police had visited the office so many times that their visits had become routine.

  ‘Yes, but not in the way you think. They were asking about Mr Miandad.’

  ‘Mo?’ she asked, not being as deferential as Falana.

  Her friend nodded. ‘Yes. They wanted to know where he was. Mr Berger said we hadn’t seen him here for weeks and they should ask the shipping agency, but the police said they already had. No one knows where he is.’

  Anastasia scoffed. ‘He’s probably run off with yet another woman.’ They had heard about Katherine Ball’s arrest in London, and decided she must have been the blonde who had been spotted with Miandad in a sleazy hotel.

  ‘No. That’s not it,’ said Falana. ‘Apparently they want to talk to him about the murder of Maria Galanos.’

  ‘They think Mo knows something about that?’

  ‘They think he did it.’

  ‘Mother of God! No wonder he’s disappeared. I wonder where he’s gone.’

  ‘Pakistan,’ said a voice, and the girls looked up to see Alex Limonides in the doorway. ‘That’s where he’ll be. And they’ll never find him there.’

  ‘Coke and a slice of lemon,’ said the CIA Station Head, London, Andy Bokus. ‘Lots of ice.’

  The Athenaeum Club wine waiter allowed the merest flicker of surprise to cross his face. But when Fane ordered a glass of Chablis, he smiled.

  Bokus leaned forward and said, ‘I hear one of your former colleagues has gotten the push.’

  ‘Who might that be?’ asked Fane mildly, though he knew full well who Bokus was talking about. David Blakey had resigned as Director of UCSO three days before. Word must have travelled fast if Bokus already knew about it.

  ‘You know who I mean. What exactly did he do? Get caught with his pants down? I hear it’s not the first time.’

  ‘Something like that,’
said Fane mildly.

  ‘He got taken for a ride by that Ball woman. Some piece of work she is. I hope she gets all the payback that’s coming to her.’

  ‘Evidence, Andy. Evidence. We’ll have to see what we can prove. Her partner in crime, that Pakistani shipping agent Miandad, has disappeared.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard that. He’ll be in the tribal region by now. The only thing that’ll get him is a drone.’

  Their drinks came, and Fane decided on a charm offensive. ‘Cheers, Andy,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘Nice to see you in more peaceful surroundings. Last time we met, the fur was flying off the Horn.’

  Bokus grunted and studied the menu. He had been furious that the British Special Forces had gone into Somalia without even informing the American warship that had been especially despatched to provide firepower.

  Fane couldn’t resist rubbing it in. ‘Sorry you couldn’t take part in the show, but I think you’d agree our chaps handled the whole thing rather successfully. We managed to pull MI5’s irons out of the fire and get their chap out safely. Can’t think what he was doing there in the first place. Anyway, it all worked out in the end. I hope it was useful for your lot to see how we do things.’

  Bokus’ face turned red.

  ‘Well, we should order,’ said Fane, taking up the little pad to write the order down. ‘What will you have, Andy?’

  ‘I’ll have the lobster. A whole one,’ Bokus said angrily, ignoring Fane’s raised eyebrow. ‘And I’ll start with the caviar.’

  God knows what they’d make of his expense account this month, thought Fane, but he’d happily have paid for dinner himself just to see Bokus’ reaction to being . . . what did the Americans say? Ribbed? Yes, that was it. Ribbed.

  For a luxury cruise ship, the SS Tiara was small, but its amenities were second to none. An indoor pool, an outdoor pool, three restaurants (including a sumptuous seafood buffet), a bar that literally never closed, a casino and a live entertainment show each evening (admittedly pretty dire), and enough boutiques to keep the most shopaholic matron satisfied.