by Conrad Jones
Dr. Graham Libby stepped from the Sea King helicopter and ducked low as he ran across the landing pad. He entered the morgue and was handed the attending doctors report as he dressed in his sterile scrubs. The doctor had certified the man’s body as dead, cause of death unknown. Libby lifted the cover from the corpse. He sensed something different about the body immediately; he often thought that he had a sixth sense with his subjects. He felt that the more he could find out about the way they met their end, the closer he became to them. “The body is a male in his early twenties, he is neatly dressed. He is of Asian or Middle Eastern origin. The body is displaying signs of trauma. There is a chunk of the right cheek missing and definitive teeth marks. From the size and shape of the teeth marks, I would say that they are human. I am not swabbing the cheek wound for DNA because of the time the body has spent in the Irish Sea. There is bruising to the nose and below both the eyes, indicating that he had been in some sort of fight before he died.” The doctor cut open the t-shirt that the body wore and looked for signs of lividity or discoloration. “There is no dew on the corpse, which I would expect to see. There is also no rigor mortis or post mortem lividity. The body temperature is 27.2 degrees centigrade, which is completely inconsistent with the on-call physicians report. This is all wrong. I am taking the body temperature a second time using the mouth as the reading point. The thermometer is reading 27.2 degrees.” Graham Libby looked at the thermometer and noticed fresh spittle on the glass bulb. Dead bodies don’t produce saliva. He was now seriously concerned about the attending doctor’s report. Of the three cardinal signs of death, algor (cooling), rigor (stiffening) and livor (staining), there was only algor present.
A body pulled from the waters of the Irish Sea either alive or dead would be considerably cooler than normal. He was not convinced that the doctor’s report was correct. He held the broken nose bone of the dead body and squeezed it hard between his finger and thumb. He stared at the corpse as a tiny tear trickled from the eye down the cheek. “This man is still alive for God’s sake, unless dead people have suddenly started to feel pain,” Dr. Libby cried.
There was a flurry of activity around the hospital as emergency teams ran to the morgue. Hot water bottles were placed around the body and oxygen was administered. They wired him up to an ECG machine, but still the vital signs were negative. “The body has been in the water so long that the blood circulation has slowed down. He has effectively been frozen alive and is in a hypothermic stupor. We must raise his body temperature immediately,” Dr. Libby had never experienced a patient in hypothermic stupor, but its effects were well chronicled. Silver thermal blankets were applied to the corpse and the hot water bottles were changed quickly as they cooled. A faint pulse appeared in the neck of the corpse and the ECG monitor registered a heartbeat.
Mustapha had no idea where he was as he awoke seventy-two hours later. He knew that he was awake and that he wasn’t alone. As his eyes started to focus, he could see a pretty young nurse leaning over him. Beyond her was a bright light fixed to a white ceiling. The light hurt his eyes and he squeezed them closed again. The smell of antiseptic hung heavily in the air. He felt very weak and tired. His nose and face caused him pain. He wanted to drift back to sleep away from it all.
Mustapha slept fitfully for hours. He drifted in and out of consciousness. He dreamt of Sian and the terrible way she had looked when she died. He dreamt of his sister Yasmine and how they used to play outside in the sunshine when they were children. Yasmine was always laughing when he dreamed of her. Mustapha was pulled back toward reality by the sound of voices around him; the image of Yasmine laughing was replaced by one of her lying shattered and broken on the cold tarmac of a motorway.
He opened his eyes and saw the smiling face of a nurse, she placed a glass of water to his lips and he sipped it. His mouth and throat were sore from the tubes that had been inserted into him to help him to breathe and eat. Behind the nurses he saw a policeman standing near the doorway. He was wearing padded body armour and held a vicious looking black machinegun of some description. Reality was creeping back to him slowly. A big man, that he recognised vaguely, greeted the armed guard and approached the bed. He had a shaved head and his muscular frame stretched the material of his black suit to the limits. Mustapha remembered that he was Sian’s superior officer. His name was Tank. He knew why he was here; he would want to know why Sian was dead. Mustapha wasn’t really sure that he knew the answer, except that it would involve his brother Yasser. The killing would never stop until Yasser was dead.
CHAPTER 45
Majeed
Majeed stepped out of his hotel into the historic centre of Istanbul; the only city in the world that is built on two continents, where the waters of the Black Sea meet the Sea of Marmara. Istanbul was once the home of the Sultans of the Great Ottoman Empire. During the years of Ottoman rule, the Islamic Empire was the mightiest force on the planet. Majeed looked at the beautiful Blue Mosque in the distance; it was illuminated by a hundred spotlights after dark, making its six tall minarets and giant arched domes a breathtaking sight. The 17th century Ottoman mosque was spectacular against the skyline of this vibrant city. Majeed headed toward the Bosphorus Bridge where he would meet his contact.
Majeed had driven the truck that had contained the IRA’s surplus Semtex explosives from Ireland to Warrington. It wasn’t long after that the British security services descended on the town looking for the conspirators. He was told that his friend Tariq had betrayed the Caliph, and that he had been murdered for his actions. After the Warrington raids, police attention on the mosque and its community had been too severe for Majeed to remain in the country safely. Majeed was given false papers by Yasser Ahmed’s affiliates and he was flown to Islamabad in Pakistan. He had been here many times since the end of the war in Afghanistan in 2001. Majeed was one of the thousands of disaffected young Arab extremists who flocked to Pakistan. These Mujahideen veterans now turned their attention to different enemies. Pakistani President Bhutto was under massive international pressure at the time of the Afghan Arabian influx. Western and Middle Eastern governments were demanding a crack down on the foreign militants in Peshawar.
In the aftermath of the World Trade Centre attack, Egypt, the USA and Saudi Arabia had all given Islamabad lists of the radicals and suspected terrorists that were hiding in Pakistan. The Egyptians were especially incensed because the men they suspected of reducing their Islamabad embassy to smoking rubble in 1995 were still at large in the city. Al-Qaeda and other extremist organisations used the country as a safe haven for their members. It was here on his last visit that Majeed decided to break away from the mainstream activists to join ‘Ishmael’s Axe’. He spent only a few days in Islamabad before travelling to Istanbul. His journey of Jihad was nearly over and he was proud that he had contributed so much to his cause; from the mountains of Kabul where he fought and killed the invading Soviet soldiers with much enthusiasm, to the streets of Britain. He had been a loyal servant of Islam. His reward would be in heaven.
Majeed continued toward the River Bosphorus to meet his contact there, unaware of the two British agents who had followed him. When Majeed left the house that he shared in Warrington, following the raids there, he was immediately tracked. The bugs that Chen and his agents had planted in the house transmitted their signals to the surveillance centre in the old school. The listening post tracked Majeed as he travelled to Pakistan and then to Istanbul. He had checked in his luggage at Manchester Airport’s terminal three, which was immediately searched without his knowledge. TTF affiliates made sure that extra electronic tags were attached to his belongings. There was no sign of anything illegal in his luggage so the TTF allowed his journey to proceed in the hope that he would lead them to Axe’s leaders abroad. So far the operation had highlighted two new safe houses in Islamabad, and several previously unknown activists were now under observation. The international war on terror needed as much information as it could possibly gain to be effective against the faceless
enemy. Surveillance and espionage were key weapons in the struggle against terrorism of any description.
The two TTF agents walked faster to close the gap between themselves and Majeed. Majeed approached the Bosphorus Bridge and saw a silver taxi parked at the side of the road. He knew that was his contact waiting for him. The taxi was a Skoda Octavia, whose driver was a fat man with a large head. The fat taxi driver was eating a greasy kebab when Majeed approached the vehicle. He had large dark patches beneath his arms where his deodorant had failed to stop him sweating. He chewed noisily on the spicy meat. “My friend Morris had a taxi that was just like this one. How much would it be to take me to the Grand Bazaar?” Majeed said to the driver. Many of the Turkish nationals that worked in the busy tourist industry used English names to impress their customers, hoping for a bigger tip no doubt.
The fat taxi driver opened the door and wrestled his huge frame out of the vehicle. Without saying a word, he walked toward the bridge still eating his kebab. Majeed looked around nervously. He sat in the driver’s seat and closed the door. He had to adjust the seat forward so that he could drive the vehicle. The fat man had pushed the seat back as far as it would go. The car smelled of sweat, cigarettes and chilli sauce. Majeed was given five minutes to drive the car bomb to the American embassy, and detonate the huge device in the boot. He took a deep breath and engaged first gear. The embassy was only a mile away over the bridge.
The TTF agents had to intercept their target; Majeed had been tailed since leaving Britain but presented no imminent threat until now. Once he made the switch with the taxi driver, the agents no longer knew what the threat level was. The possibility of the taxi containing explosive was high. To try and identify a potential target at this stage would be impossible. Istanbul contained many cultural and political centres, any of which could be attacked without too much trouble, `soft targets’. In recent years the TTF had agents stationed in Istanbul permanently. The city had been targeted frequently. British interests in the city had been attacked, resulting in the British consulate being destroyed and a British owned bank being reduced to smoking ruins. The same day, two synagogues were destroyed; the attacks resulted in fifty-seven dead and over seven hundred injured.
John Tankersley had visited the city in August 2006 when terrorist bombers launched a twenty-four hour campaign of destruction across the country. The bombing campaign was aimed at the tourist industry in an attempt to destabilise the government by damaging the economy. British tourists were attacked, not for any specific nationalist reasons, but for Islamic ones. Extremists saw them as allies of the invaders from America. Tank helped to investigate twenty separate bomb attacks, eight of which occurred in August. The investigation discovered that the bombs were not the work of an international extremist group. It had been the work of Kurdish extremists who were trying to spotlight their struggle for an independent state. The worst of the attacks occurred in the resort of Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast. A busy tourist market place was attacked, causing the deaths of three people. Tank identified that these attacks were the result of an internal political struggle and deployed TTF agents to monitor the situation. They would also be activated to respond to any future international threat. Majeed now constituted an international threat, and hence came under TTF jurisdiction; terminal force could be used if necessary.
Agent Anthony John removed his Smith and Weston MP15 9mm pistol from its holster; the black tungsten weapon was the modern day pistol of choice carried by undercover agents the world over. It was extremely lightweight, and had a short three-inch barrel that made it difficult to detect visually. Despite its smaller design, the MP15 would stop a rhino at a hundred yards. Agent John fired twice as the vehicle started to move forward. The fat bullets destroyed the driver’s side front tyre, shredding the rubber before continuing into the engine block. The Skoda seemed to tilt to one side as the tyre burst and a jet of smoke and steam hissed from the engine block; the car spluttered one last time and stopped completely. “If you move your hands from the steering wheel, I will blow your head off. Remain very still and keep your hands on the wheel.” Agent John moved slowly. He kept himself parallel with the vehicle but maintained his distance from it. His partner stepped in front of the crippled silver taxi and levelled his weapon at Majeed’s head. The agents had no idea what type of detonator the car bomb was wired to, but the chances were that the suicide bomber would try to reach for it. Majeed was starting to sweat profusely and his hands were trembling on the wheel. He had been told that there was a five minute timer applied to the car bomb in the boot that would be activated when the driver’s door was closed. He could not stop the device from exploding, nor could he drive the vehicle to its intended target. He had no weapon to attack the infidel with. Agent Anthony John looked to his colleague to confirm what he was thinking. He thought the bomber would have detonated the explosives by now if he could. His colleague nodded his head almost imperceptibly. The two agents started to move backward away from the taxi slowly, keeping their weapons pointed at Majeed. This device was attached to a timer or a remote detonator, which could be activated from a distance. Bombers sometimes used both systems so that their bombs could still be detonated even if the driver was killed or incapacitated.
The seconds ticked by, seeming like hours. Majeed began to think that the device had failed and that he would be spared the humiliation of dying in a failed car bomb attack. After all he had been through, his final glorious act of Jihad failed. The sound of police sirens were approaching from across the Bosphorus Bridge, the blue flashing lights now visible. The Turkish police were notoriously uncooperative and corrupt. The presence of armed foreign agents would agitate the local police force and make this delicate situation very complicated. The TTF men didn’t need any complications. Agent Anthony John fired three bullets into the boot of the taxi and the device exploded. The taxi disintegrated into shards of jagged metal as the vehicle was blown three feet into the air. Ball bearings and nails formed a lethal metal spray that radiated out from the blast area. Majeed’s blackened right hand was still attached to the charred steering wheel when the shattered vehicle returned to the tarmac; nothing else of him remained.
CHAPTER 46
TTF Liverpool
Tank and Grace stepped from the elevator onto the top floor of the police station. The office was buzzing with activity; agents were at every desk, talking hurriedly into telephones. Major Timms and Chen were standing next to the large white digital wipe board the team used to illustrate ideas. Chen was pointing his finger and then pulling whole words across the board as if his finger were magnetic. As Chen rearranged words on the board, he was talking quickly to the Major. He always talked quickly when he was excited. The Major and Chen had both rolled their shirt sleeves up to their elbows; their shirt collars were tieless and unfastened. They spotted Tank and Faz as they approached. “That’s very funny, Chen. What’s going on here then?” Tank said as he pulled up a chair. He patted Chen on the back hard, nearly knocking him over.
Major Timms picked up the remote handset that controlled the digital board and pressed play. The screen changed immediately to an image of a man stood in front of the Iraqi flag. It was Yasser Ahmed. He was holding a 9mm Uzi machine gun for effect. His long black hair was tied tightly behind his head, and he wore a dark headband. “Our message to the people of the West is a simple one; if you choose to vote for your crusading governments, then you are legitimate targets for the soldiers of Islam. Your leaders have led an illegal invasion into the lands of Islam, and we, the Mujahideen will defend ourselves. The people of the West must denounce this unholy invasion, and demand that the United Nations acts to stop this military action with its own troops. All Muslim prisoners illegally held in Guantanamo, and across the world must be freed. I have spelled it out to your governments before. Now I spell it out to you again. You will read the message and weep. We will not stop until every last Muslim brother is free from Christian and Zionist oppression.” Yasser Ahmed fired the m
achine gun into the air and the image disappeared. The digital board lit up again and the words that Chen had been moving around reappeared on the screen. “Chen’s onto something I think,” Timms said, pointing to the screen. “Ahmed specifically used the phrase ‘spell’ in the message several times. He likes to play games and tries to prove that he is more intelligent than we are. Look at this,” Major Timms gave Tank a typed list of recent attacks.
Tank studied the list with Faz but there appeared to be no pattern at first glance. “Watch this please,” Chen said as he added the chronological order of the bombings to the screen. “We haven’t noticed this before because not all of the attacks are successful. We generally only put actual successful contacts onto the index rather than all of the attempted attacks. The foiled plots and plans we disregard. We give ourselves a gold star for solving them and then forget about them. The attacks that took place overnight make no sense at all if you apply my theory to them, because Istanbul and Hamburg were stopped. So we couldn’t see the pattern until we applied my theory to them, then it was obvious,” Chen was very animated and trying his best to get his theory across but without success. “Chen, I haven’t got a bloody clue what you’re talking about so please just `spell’ it out for us. Excuse the pun, Major,” Tank said shaking his head. He hated it when Chen spotted something before he had, but he often did. “Okay then, pay attention please. We registered successful car bomb attacks overnight in Johannesburg, Amsterdam and Dubai. We also recorded foiled attacks in Hamburg and Istanbul. Now then if we forget what the outcome of each attack was, and just put them all on the same list. Then we need to apply the chronological order in which they should have happened,” Chen moved the digital names around on the screen, placing them in an imaginary order. “Now we have Johannesburg, Istanbul, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Dubai,” Chen pointed to each city as he read it out trying to emphasise his point. “Well they aren’t in alphabetical order. They aren’t even on the same continents. They are not all British colonies or American interests either. I still don’t see your point Chen,” Tank stared at the list but the more he stared, the less sense it made. “I will add the attacks from last week to the board in the same chronological order, Glasgow, London, Oslo, Boston, Athens and Las Vegas. We discovered the London plot before the Glasgow attack took place. Forensics has told us that the car bomb in London was actually timed to explode after Glasgow airport had been attacked,” Chen was straining at the bit now. His theory was so obvious to him that he couldn’t understand why no one else could see it. “Yasser Ahmed said he would spell it out to us. If we put the attacks in the correct sequence, and use the first letter of each city, we can spell the words, GLOBAL JIHAD.” Chen shrugged and held his hands palms up like a magician finishing a trick. “You can’t be serious. Have you checked this theory with his other attacks?” Tank stood up and stared at the list in disbelief. Now the theory had been explained, it made perfect sense. “Run some of the others past me. I am not convinced that this isn’t just a coincidence,” Grace said shaking her head incredulously.
