Markov. It had been on a similarly crowded street in this very city that Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov had been assassinated in ’78—long before his time, Harry thought—a ricin pellet jabbed into his thigh with an umbrella.
A long time ago…but he found himself moving even more cautiously now, scanning faces in the press. It was something only a spy would have remembered.
“I’m not going to be able to reach you, old son,” the Irishman added after a long pause. “Getting into central London is dicey for someone like myself on the best of days. Today…”
Harry cast a long look up the street as he moved toward the crosswalk, taking in the sight of uniformed bobbies on horseback moving along the outskirts of the hurrying crowd. Trying to maintain control. “Copy that,” was his terse response, pulling his cap down lower over his eyes. “I’ll find my own way out.”
12:47 P.M.
Thames House
“Where’s Alec?” Mehreen asked, entering the Centre out of breath. With London’s transportation system closing down, getting back had been more problematic than she could have imagined. It was like 7/7 all over again—the panic in the streets.
“He’s in conference with Marsh,” Norris responded, giving her a look as he moved back and forth between workstations, monitoring his screens. “We have a claim of responsibility.”
She winced. It was something that had been conspicuously absent from the previous two attacks. “Tarik Abdul Muhammad?”
He shook his head, a strange look on his face. “No…it’s a web video from a group calling itself the Infidels of St. George.”
“A far-right group?” Her brow furrowed in bewilderment. “Is the claim legitimate or just opportunism?”
“You be the judge.” He waved a hand at the screen, motioning for her to come over. “This hit the Internet three minutes after the blast—it’s spreading like wildfire. No way they could have gotten something this sophisticated up that fast if they weren’t involved.”
“The bombing of the Madina Mosque is only the beginning,” a synthesized male voice announced from the screen as the video began to play—revealing a dark, seemingly featureless room, the plain white wall in the background draped with a large flag of St. George. Red cross on a field of stark white. “For years,” the man’s voice continued, as a masked figure dressed in dark clothing moved into the view of the camera, “we have been invaded, by an enemy our elected leaders are too cowardly to even name. They have taken over our schools, bombed our buses. Assaulted our women. No longer. This is where England takes a stand, for all that is right in this world. They call us infidels, and so we are, for we have not forgotten our oaths. We are coming.”
The figure turned, walking off into the shadows as the instrumental strains of “Rule, Britannia” began to pour through the speakers and the video faded to black.
“The Infidels of St. George,” Mehreen repeated thoughtfully, staring at Norris’ screen. “What do we know of them?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No chatter, no Internet noise. They’re like a ghost.”
“Or they don’t exist,” she retorted.
“Or they’re just very good. Look here.” He reached forward with his pen, indicating a portion of the video. “That’s not plaster, that’s plastic sheeting.”
“They masked the room.” It was something the jihadists had learned after years of hard experience—even a glimpse of the wall in the room where a video had been taken could provide valid intel on the location of a terrorist cell. The solution had been to drape the walls in dark cloth—or plastic, as here. “Any clues on origin of upload?”
Norris winced, shaking his head. “GCHQ is working on it, no substantive leads so far. The reference to the remembering of oaths is nearly a duplicate of something said by Lucas Sanders, a mid-ranking BDC captain who was leading the protest.”
“Have we spoken with him?”
“He was critically injured in the blast,” the analyst replied. “CO-19 has him sequestered in a ward at Barnet, under armed guard.”
She saw MacCallum leaving the conference room at that moment, his steps quickening as he moved toward the elevators and she hurried to catch up with him. Calling out as she did so.
“Where have you been, Mehr?” he asked, his voice low as he turned to meet her. “This whole day is exploding out of control—I can’t afford to be a man down.”
There was nothing for it but to take the plunge. “I was contacted by an informant earlier this morning—a source I hadn’t heard from since my days in the field,” she lied, looking him in the eye. Trying not to oversell it. “They were always very reliable. Solid intelligence.”
“And?”
“They gave me this,” Mehreen responded, handing over the slip of paper with the scrawled coordinates. “It’s the GPS coordinates of a warehoused weapons cache in Ashton-under-Lyne…apparently a significant stockpile of illegal weapons and explosives. High-end stuff. Plastique, even.”
She paused, considering her options before adding, “I think it could be connected to today’s attack.”
1:27 P.M.
Barnet Hospital
North London
Sirens were still wailing as Paul Gordon walked out of the hospital, the emergency wards flooded with bombing victims. A man screaming in agony, clutching at a leg no longer there, a young woman lying on a stretcher—half her face burned away.
She had reminded him of Alice.
He’d seen the death count on the telly before leaving his sister’s side. Thirty and climbing—their bomb had taken out the support beams of the Madina Mosque, collapsing the building in upon itself. The news reports said emergency personnel were still pulling people from the rubble.
Dear God. What had he done? He could see it all now, the truth revealed in Hale’s voice. This had never been about sending a message—unless it was one written in blood.
And perhaps he had known the truth all along. Known and refused to see it, blinded by his own lust for vengeance. By grief.
He kept his head down as he made his way down the street, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket—moving past uniformed officers interviewing survivors.
Now what? A germ of an idea—a dangerous idea—had begun to form in his mind when he had been talking to Hale…but it was just that, an idea. Not a plan.
And not nearly enough.
1:35 P.M.
The United States Embassy
Grosvenor Square
“Of course, sir,” Carlos Jimenez replied, speaking into the phone “We’ll do everything within our power. Understood.”
There was a click on the other end of the line and he leaned forward, replacing the Secure Telephone Unit in its cradle on the desk.
There were few things more stress-inducing than being chief of station when your host country had just suffered a terrorist attack, Jimenez thought, staring at the phone. And with the UK having suffered three in the last three days, calls like the one he had just hung up from were becoming an all-too-frequent occurrence.
His door opened to admit Parker. “You called for me, Carlos?”
A nod. “I did. Have the Marines get you a car, my authorization. I want you at Thames House directly.” He gestured toward the phone. “That was Director Lay—the President wants us to lend the Security Service our full support in the wake of this terrorist attack on the Madina Mosque. Everything we have. As usual…the special relationship, ‘hands across the sea’ and all that.”
“I understand that,” Thomas replied, “what I don’t understand is what I’m going to be able to accomplish at Thames House?”
Jimenez got up, rounding the desk to look Thomas in the eye. Lowering his voice. “Honestly? A threat against the UK is a potential threat against the US. I want you to find out what they know. Everything they know.”
2:43 P.M.
A school
Leeds
It wasn’t real. It just wasn’t—the images, the video. Cameras ha
d been rolling at the moment of the explosion, and now the footage was being replayed for all the world to see—streamed over the Internet by thousands of users.
Thirty-eight of the faithful dead. Aydin looked down at the screen of his iPhone, a tear running down his cheek as the news coverage of the carnage continued.
At the front of the classroom, the teacher rattled on—her shrill voice drowned out by the sounds of death in his ear. The sirens.
The chatrooms were already alive with the word, spreading like wildfire across the web…the attack had been carried out by right-wing fascists. The type of men behind the riots in Birmingham. The type of men who had oppressed Muslims in the Middle East for years.
And now it had come back here to kill those at prayer.
He choked back a sob, leaning back in his desk as he glanced around at his classmates—finding himself repulsed.
Remembering the words of the imam, sitting there in that café. “It is truly as the Prophet has said…everyone will be with those whom he loves.”
He didn’t love them. Didn’t belong with them. When Aydin next raised his head, the tears had been replaced by an angry defiance—his youthful face hard as he glared forward toward the young teacher.
He glanced down once more at the message he had typed, hesitating for only a moment before pressing SEND.
And it was done.
2:51 P.M.
The apartment
Leeds
Had he not known in advance what must happen, the events of the day would have come as a devastating shock.
Even so…Tarik Abdul Muhammad found his gaze drifting back to the television screen—the images of destruction replaying themselves continually in an effort to satisfy their Western audience’s appetite for horror.
And horrifying it was, but the imam of the Madina Mosque had disgraced his faith in his appeasement of the West. And had not the Prophet himself cleansed Arabia of the apostate Muslims before turning his attentions outward?
He turned his attention back to Hashim Rahman, to the phone in the imam’s hand. “Can he be trusted for the work we are going to perform?”
“He is a pious young man,” Rahman nodded. “Completely unskilled, but true of heart. He would never betray us.”
Tarik smiled, placing a hand on the older man’s shoulder as he moved past him into the kitchen of the small apartment. “Insh’allah, it takes no skill to detonate a suicide vest—only the courage to wait for the right moment.”
3:06 P.M.
Thames House
London, England
It was an unmarked Embassy car that dropped Thomas Parker off at the door of Thames House, the Marine driver letting it idle as Thomas pushed open the passenger door, flashing open his ID toward the nearest guard. With the city on high alert, Jimenez had wanted to keep things as low-key and unobtrusive as possible.
Marsh had doubled down on security, he thought as he was waved in, passing beneath the barrel-vaulted entrance—noting the unusual sight of H&K submachine guns slung at the ready.
The door closed behind him, shutting out the street noise as he moved farther into the building, his eyes sweeping from one side of the corridor to the other—beginning to empty his pockets as he approached the metal detectors.
Time to be a good ally.
“I talked with Marsh,” MacCallum announced as soon as Mehreen entered the conference room. Papers were strewn about the section chief at one end of the table—and his usually impassive face bore the marks of stress. “He’s approved the seizure of this arms cache.”
He paused. “Any other time we might hold back—conduct surveillance, monitor the situation. Move in only after we’ve identified all the players. Perhaps that would still be best, but we’re stretched thin and the Home Office is calling for blood.”
“I understand. Desperate times,” she began, but MacCallum finished the sentence for her.
“…require desperate measures. And this couldn’t be more so.” The section chief shook his head. “The levels of Internet chatter have exploded—on both sides. The jihadis are holding this up as an example of the futility of Muslims attempting to curry favor with the West and the web views of Enoch Powell’s old ‘rivers of blood’ speech have tripled in the last two hours.”
She shook her head. “We’re on the brink.” Perhaps they had been for a long time, but the reality was hitting home. And all it would take was another push.
“We are. But like I say, we’re short on men. Parker is on his way over here, on loan from the cousins.” MacCallum’s eyes seemed to move past her, out through the glass of the conference room. She looked back to see the American just entering the operations center—as casual as ever, a light jacket over jeans.
“Speak of the devil. Take him with you, there’s a helicopter warming up on the pad at Battersea,” he continued, hopelessly dating himself by using the old name for the London Heliport. “You’ll be liaising with the Lancashire Constabulary’s Firearms Unit—they’re in charge of operations on the ground.”
3:47 P.M.
Hammersmith
West London
“I nearly thought you weren’t going to show, boyo,” Flaharty snarled, reaching across to unlock the door as Harry rapped loudly on the window.
Harry slid into the passenger seat of the BMW, favoring his ally with an exasperated glance. “Have you ever tried lifting a car in central London? Cameras everywhere.”
The OSIRIS map data he had downloaded onto his phone had saved him, but only barely.
The Irishman shook his head. “I was always too sodding smart for all that.”
Harry snorted. “Booth’s flat—you’ve already been and done a recce?”
“About ninety minutes ago,” Flaharty responded, nodding. “Everything was quiet. She might be out to pick up her tyke from school now…we can always go in and wait for her.”
It was likely for the best, Harry thought—his mind flashing back to the picture he had seen of Caitlyn Murray as he’d gone over her Facebook account earlier that morning.
Pictures of the two of them, relaxing. A day at the beach—their son building sand castles in the distance.
How did you look a woman in the eye and tell her that you had killed the man she loved? Shot him in the back. There was no honor in that, but he had left honor far behind, long ago.
Yet another casualty of the years, like all the rest. He swallowed hard, feeling the bulk of the dead man’s gun under his jacket. Steeling himself for what was to come.
“So,” Flaharty began, glancing in the mirror as the car pulled out into the narrow street. “The meeting with your contact at Five—what came of it?”
“It’s on,” Harry replied, checking his watch. He had received a message from Mehreen barely twenty minutes before, confirming everything they had agreed upon. “They should be hitting the warehouse within the next half hour.”
4:12 P.M.
Ashton-under-Lyne
As helicopter flights went, Thomas Parker thought, it had to be one of the calmer ones of his life.
He looked out the window of the police Eurocopter as the city flashed past beneath them, remembering other flights.
Coming in low over a desert bathed in the green of his night-vision goggles, feet dangling from the door of a Little Bird, the pilot flying nap-of-the-earth up a wadi. A scoped Remington rigged across his chest, ready for action. He’d always been the team’s sniper.
But he was unarmed now, he thought—looking over at Mehreen. Unarmed and vulnerable. They both were.
A fact that didn’t seem to bother her in the least. Perhaps you got used to it after a while.
He heard the pilot’s voice over his headset, felt the helo bank sharply to the right, pulling into a hover.
A glance at the ground and he spied the large open parking lot the Lancashire Constabulary had set up as a staging area—the strips of fabric laid out to form a massive “H” in the middle, amidst the emergency vehicles.
H marks the
spot.
“There’s been no activity observed in the last hour since my men arrived on site,” the constable announced, glancing from Mehreen to Thomas. He ran a thumb across the screen of the tablet, opening up a satellite overlay of the area.
It was from a commercial geosat, with dated imagery and less detail than Thomas had come to expect from his years of receiving support from the National Reconnaissance Office. Still, it would do for their purposes.
Mehreen shook her head. “Our intel indicated that the cache was under guard. You may be facing opposition once you breach the perimeter.”
“We’ll be deploying a team here—and here,” he said by way of reply, indicating the points on the screen with the worn-down eraser of a stubby pencil. “We’ll be ready for them.”
A familiar mix of old technology and new, Thomas noted absently, his gaze taking in the constable’s equipment. A Glock 17 holstered on the man’s hip, a Heckler & Koch G36 carbine lying there atop the safe in the back of the Ford S-Max armed response vehicle.
The rest of the Firearms Unit was similarly equipped, and looked…competent enough, Thomas thought—assessing them with a critical eye. He’d seen better, and he had seen much worse.
Whether they were good enough for today was yet to be seen. His attention shifted back to the constable just in time to hear Mehreen ask, “How soon can you have your men in position?”
4:17 P.M.
Hammersmith
West London
It was a quiet neighborhood—at least as quiet as things got in the city. Nicer than he had expected, Harry thought, shoving the car door closed behind him—for a lance corporal’s pension.
Whoever had been paying Booth, they had done so sufficiently to enable him and his family to live in a measure of comfort. The flat was one-half of a terrace house, the white stucco distinguishing it from the pale blue-green of its neighbor—a low brick wall surrounding the small courtyard in front.
“Stay here and keep watch,” he instructed quietly, putting a hand on the iron gate and swinging it open.
Flaharty nodded, taking a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shaking one out. Harry had never taken up the habit himself, but he acknowledged its worth.
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 28
