Siege (6 page)

The train came to a stop, its brakes emitting a long metallic shriek, and the doors opened. Immediately, the bottleneck eased as the passengers exited one at a time. When it came to the young man’s turn, he took a quick look up the platform at the wall of people pouring down the platform towards him from the rear coaches, then stepped down and joined them.

This was it. The time. He’d been building up to it for months now. Ever since the cowardly dogs of NATO had declared war on his country and tried to divide its peoples so that they could steal the oil that was rightfully theirs. And now he’d received the honour of being one of the few chosen to strike back.

The young man had been travelling on the train’s third carriage, and when he was level with the beginning of the first carriage, and some twenty yards from the ticket barriers, where already the passengers were slowing up as a new bottleneck formed, he took his phone from his pocket and speed-dialled the number on the screen.

The sound of the explosion was deafening. Even though he’d steeled himself against it, and was wearing noise-suppressing headphones, he was still pushed forward and fell to one knee.

For a long time, no one moved. This was the moment of shock, when everyone’s senses were so scrambled they didn’t know how to react. And then the screams started.

Slipping the phone back into his jacket pocket, he got to his feet and took a first look at the mayhem behind him.

Thick black smoke and claws of flame billowed out of a huge hole in the side of the train. There were a lot of people lying unmoving on the platform, while others were on their hands and knees, clutching at injuries. He couldn’t tell how many because his view was blocked by people – some trying to help, others simply milling about with shocked, terrified expressions, and a few sensible ones making a dash towards the exits and safety.

The young man took no pleasure from the scene, but he felt no guilt either. This was war. And in war, there were always civilian casualties. The British had been committing atrocities against his people with their warplanes and missiles for months now, and the people all around him supported their government’s actions with their votes and their tax money. All he was doing was restoring some balance.

The station staff had opened the ticket gates now and were yelling at people to get away from the source of the explosion, while a couple of overwhelmed-looking police officers shouted for people to leave the station but to stay calm, even though their own faces seemed to radiate panic.

Immediately, there was a rush for the exits. People were yelling and screaming, some leaping over the turnstiles rather than waiting to go through them, one man even trying to scale the roof of a shop selling ties. On the public address system an announcement started up, playing on a loop: ‘All passengers must evacuate the station now. Please follow the instructions of staff. All passengers must evacuate the station now.’

The young man knew where they were being sent. It was common knowledge that the meeting point in the event of a fire or related emergency was on the slip road next to the taxi rank on the southern side of the station. He also knew that having reached what they thought was a place of safety, most people would then stay put, wanting to be near enough to the unfolding drama so that they didn’t miss anything.

Which was exactly what he wanted them to do.

When it came to his turn, he hurried through the turnstile, following the barked commands of the police officers as they ushered him to the right, towards the exit.

His last walk on Planet Earth.

It wasn’t particularly inspiring, taking in the giant overhead signs carrying the arrival and departure times of the trains, the information centre, the bland-looking shops … all temples of a western consumerism he despised.

He wouldn’t miss this place. A far better one awaited him, as it awaited all good warriors.

He thought of his childhood. Playing football in the street outside his home with his brother Khalid and his friends; Friday lunch with the whole family, when everyone would be laughing and happy; his grandma bringing him and his brother candies hidden in the folds of her skirts. He missed Grandma, who’d been gone almost ten years. He missed his father, who’d been gone four. And he missed Khalid – dear, handsome Khalid – who’d been incinerated by a NATO missile fired by some coward hundreds of miles away as he fought against the mercenaries and traitors trying to divide and destroy his country. He hoped to see them all in paradise, God willing. Soon now.

Very soon.

A crowd of people were waiting on the slip road outside the station, many of them already on their phones telling others about what they’d just seen and heard, while a far smaller number of station staff in fluorescent jackets tried to keep them adequately marshalled.

The young man reached round behind his back and gently tugged the detonation cord free from his rucksack. His whole body throbbed with anticipation. His palms were lined with sweat, and he could hear nothing except the steady drumming of his heart. For the first time, perhaps in his life, his whole world was in perfect focus.

The crowd seemed to part naturally, allowing him to move inside it. One of the staff urged him to keep moving.

But he didn’t. He slowed right down. He was in the middle of it now, only feet away from a man talking loudly into a phone pressed hard against his ear. But he hardly saw the man. He hardly saw any of them. It was as if he was watching them through a rain-drenched windscreen.

This was it. The time.

He stood up ramrod straight, the detonation cord gripped firmly in his hand.

Someone saw him. A middle-aged woman with bleached blonde hair. No more than five feet away. She cried out. One single, howled word: ‘Jesus!’

The man on the phone looked round and seemed to realize what was going on. Instinctively he moved towards the young man, his hand outstretched.

But he was too late. The young man was ready.

‘For God and my people!’ he cried out, and yanked the detonation cord with all his strength, embracing the eruption of noise and light as he was torn to pieces.

THE VAN WAS
just passing Notting Hill Gate tube station when Fox heard the faint boom of the explosion through the open window.

That’ll be the train bomb, he thought.

He took a quick breath as the enormity of what he was involved in was brought home to him. In the van, everyone was quiet. Even Wolf had stopped drumming his fingers on the dashboard – something he’d been doing for most of the journey – as he waited for what they knew would happen next.

They were moving faster now, the traffic easing up, probably because they were heading away from the earlier blast at the Westfield and the numbers of emergency vehicles moving towards it had temporarily thinned out. The new explosion would stretch them even further, and trigger the first real signs of panic in the capital. It was, thought Fox, incredibly easy in the digital age, where information was only a second away, to sow fear and chaos among the population with only the most basic weaponry.

Two minutes later, just as they came towards Lancaster Gate, they heard the second blast.

Wolf nodded slowly and rubbed his pockmarked face. Fox had never met the man who’d just turned himself into a walking bomb but he knew he was one of Wolf’s protégés. He watched as Wolf reached for his phone and dialled a number.

‘It’s out of service,’ he said. ‘He’s gone.’

‘I can just imagine what it’s like in Scotland Yard’s control room now,’ said Fox. He had nothing but disdain for the politically correct leadership of the Metropolitan Police and their bosses the politicians, all of whom would be in a state of wide-eyed confusion now as they realized how truly powerless they were in the greater scheme of things.

‘It’s time to rain down some more havoc,’ Wolf responded, putting the phone on loudspeaker as he dialled another number.

After a good minute a woman’s voice came on the line, her tone harassed. ‘
Evening Standard
, Julie Peters.’

‘In the last five minutes two bombs have exploded at Paddington railway station,’ Wolf announced, using his heavy Middle Eastern accent to maximum effect. ‘One on the First Great Western train from Bristol, the other a martyrdom operation by a young mujahideen warrior on the concourse. These bombings, and the bombing at the Westfield Shopping Centre, were carried out by the Pan-Arab Army of God in direct retaliation for Britain’s involvement in the NATO attacks on Arab nations and their occupation of Muslim lands. There are four more bombs planted on trains coming into Waterloo, St Pancras, Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street. We give you this warning to show that we are prepared to negotiate.’

‘And what is it you want?’ asked Julie Peters breathlessly, but Wolf had already ended the call. He switched off the phone and removed the SIM card, which he flung out of the open window. By the time it was found it would be of no use whatsoever.

Fox knew that Wolf had given the
Evening Standard
reporter enough information about the bombings to confirm that he was involved in them, so his warning would be taken seriously, and a vague warning of multiple potential targets would stretch resources to the absolute limit.

And it would be all for nothing. There were no more bombs on trains. They weren’t needed.

Their real target was somewhere else entirely.

‘WHAT WAS THAT
, Mom?’

‘I don’t know, honey,’ said Abby Levinson, giving her son a reassuring smile as they walked back towards the hotel. ‘Probably nothing.’

But the heavy bang had unnerved her. She looked across at her father, who was walking next to the road on the other side of Ethan, and now it was his turn to give her a reassuring look – the sort of look he’d been giving her all her life. As always, he was a strong, calming presence.

‘Definitely nothing,’ he said, ruffling Ethan’s hair. ‘You always hear stuff like this in big cities. New York’s much noisier than London.’

‘Is New York nicer?’ asked Ethan.

His grandpa laughed. ‘I’m biased. I grew up there. But I like both. Although maybe we should have come to London at a different time of year.’

He pushed his hat down over his head as a gust of wind threatened to send it flying. It was beginning to rain again, and Abby contemplated pulling out her umbrella for the last fifty yards of the journey, before deciding against it and increasing her pace.

It had been a fun, if exhausting, day. A visit to the London Dungeon, lunch at McDonald’s, the London Eye, and finally the Aquarium. Ethan had had a great time, and in the end, that was what counted. It had been almost a year to the day since his father left the family home to supposedly ‘find himself’, having concluded that, actually, parenthood and its attendant responsibilities wasn’t for him, and Ethan had taken his absence hard. This trip, combining the Thanksgiving holiday with his seventh birthday, was a way of taking his mind off his father and having some fun. Although Abby had to admit she was amazed at how expensive London was. And how grey and cold. She should have expected it, of course. After all, the UK had never been known for its fine weather. But maybe she’d just got too used to Florida’s blue skies and its warm sunshine on her back. Tomorrow she was going to do some Christmas shopping in the West End on her own – a little bit of much-needed ‘me’ time before they flew home on Saturday morning – while her dad took Ethan to the Natural History Museum. The two of them loved spending time together, and it was important that Ethan had a strong male role model in his life now that Daniel was gone.

The second bang stopped her dead in her tracks. It was louder than the first. Other passers-by had stopped too, and they were now looking in the direction the noise had come from. One man looked at her and raised his eyebrows, before turning away.

‘And what do you think
that
was, Mom?’

Abby didn’t answer her son. She was watching a thin plume of smoke rising up through the rain and gathering dusk, somewhere beyond the other side of Hyde Park. She suddenly felt very vulnerable out here in the cold and gloom of this sprawling foreign city far from home.

A police car raced through the traffic past Marble Arch with sirens blaring. It was heading in the direction of the smoke.

‘Whatever it is, it’s nothing to do with us,’ Ethan’s grandpa replied over the noise of the siren. ‘And I’m getting wet out here. Come on, let’s get inside.’

He put a protective arm round both their shoulders, steering them towards home, and even though he was barely as tall as her and almost seventy-five years old, his touch made her feel a little safer.

Trying hard not to grip her son’s hand too hard, Abby hurried past the tall concierge – a guy who’d smiled mischievously at her every time she’d seen him before but who was now frowning anxiously – and into the warmth and security of the Stanhope Hotel.

NEWLY PROMOTED DEPUTY
Assistant Commissioner Arley Dale was bored and restless. She was chairing a meeting between community leaders and senior officers from Operation Trident, the unit that dealt with so-called black on black gun crime in the city. The meeting had dragged on for close to two hours now and absolutely nothing of any substance had been achieved. The community leaders were demanding action after a series of shootings in Brixton over the previous six months, while the Trident officers were demanding more cooperation from the community itself, and everyone seemed to be going round in circles, mouthing the same old platitudes. Arley, who had a reputation for banging heads together and getting things done, had tried her best to move things along but had now all but given up. She knew they had to have these meetings so that the Met could demonstrate its new, more caring attitude to minority groups, but as a DAC in one of the biggest police forces in the world she genuinely believed there were better ways of allocating her time.

She was also distracted. Twenty minutes earlier, her secretary, Ann, had interrupted the meeting to inform her that there’d been an explosion in the underground car park of the Westfield Shopping Centre. There’d been no further details available at the time, and Arley had asked to be kept informed as they came in. If the explosion turned out to be suspicious, then as the most senior officer of the Met’s Specialist Crime Directorate on duty she’d be heavily involved in implementing the Major Incident Plan in response.