THE THESEUS PARADOX: The stunning breakthrough thriller based on real events, from the Scotland Yard detective turned author. (15 page)

‘But…’

‘If you don’t drive it, I will. And that will just be more painful for you to watch than it will be for me to do. Now move!’

The driver closed the pneumatic doors and quickly put the bus into gear. He pulled off the pavement with a huge crunch and careered into the inside lane. Jake clung to the side of his cab.

The traffic had thinned slightly and the driver was clearly in his element, flashing his lights and sounding the horn. ‘Get out of the fucking way, you stupid old biddy!’ he shouted, gesticulating through the window at an old lady in the outside lane, blocking their path.

As they hit a clear piece of road, the speedometer neared 65 mph and a half grin appeared on the chubby driver’s face.

Jake’s phone rang.

‘HELLO?’ Jake shouted. He could barely hear above the clatter of the diesel engine that was being worked harder than it had ever been before.

‘Detective Flannagan? It’s Scott Rodman. I’ve spoken with Arthur. The big burka guy is off the bus.’

40

Friday

22 July 2005

1505 hours

A406 North Circular Road, north London

Jake waved at the chubby driver to slow down as he shouted into his mobile at the bus company’s control room. ‘Where? Where did he get off?’

‘Golders Green Road,’ came the reply from Scott in the control room. ‘Shall I hold the bus where it is? I’ve told the driver to hang on. It’s two stops along from you.’

Jake suddenly saw Golders Green Road on his left as they flew past it. ‘STOP! STOP!’ he shouted.

The bus driver slammed on the breaks. Jake lost his grip on the driver’s cab and careered forward into the windscreen. He smashed into it as the vehicle came to a halt against the kerb. Jake touched his forehead. Blood.

‘Sorry, mate. So sorry. You OK?’ The driver got out of his seat and held out his hand to help Jake up. ‘You’re not a professional tumbler, are you?’ he joked.

‘What?’ Jake was confused and slightly dizzy.

‘We get them all the time. They say we’ve braked dangerously when we haven’t, then they claim for some made-up injury. You look like you might have an actual claim though,’ winced the driver as he looked at Jake’s head.

‘It’s fine. I’m fine. Thanks for your help.’

Jake got off the bus. He knew he must only be a couple of minutes, if that, behind the burka man now.

He could taste the blood running down his face as it dripped into his mouth. People in cars and on the street were turning to look at him as he pounded down the road, some asking if he needed help. He ignored them. He knew head wounds always bled badly and appeared worse than they actually were. He had to keep going.

Jake got to the end of Golders Green Road; a one-way system with lots of traffic lights, an underground stop and a coach station. There was no sign of the burka-clad man.

‘Fuck!’

He couldn’t do this on his own any longer. He called the Reserve Room at the Yard and explained to Roley what had happened – that he hoped the suspect was close but he didn’t know where.

‘OK, son. Uniform know you’re there. They’re on their way. Stay where you are. I’m despatching two cars from the Yard to help. Sit tight. You’re no good to us dead or missing, son.’

Jake looked down at his white shirt. It was slicked with blood and almost completely crimson; a deep carmine-coloured shroud.

Roley was right. Stand still. Wait.

Jake tried to catch his breath. He sat down on the kerb and watched as blood dripped from his chin into the road. It dried quickly on the hot, dusty tarmac, turning dark brown. The constant dripping slowly began to form a congealing mound of bloodied mess.

Where was this guy? What was his next move? Was he running to hide or was he still in attack mode?

Jake heard sirens approaching. Then all at once there were several police cars in the centre of the one-way system. He could tell from the fluorescent yellow dot on the back windows that these were armed response vehicles.

Jake ran over. He had to keep control of the situation – they’d shot one too many innocent people today already.

An officer jumped out of the ARV and immediately went to the boot, pulling out a Heckler & Koch MP5 machine gun to inspect before loading.

‘I’m DI Flannagan. I put in the call,’ Jake said, making a beeline for the armed officer.

‘Jesus. You OK, sir?’ replied the policeman, staring at the blood pouring from Jake’s head wound.

‘I’m fine.’ Jake waved away his concern. ‘We’re looking for a guy in a full burka.’

A total of six uniformed officers had gathered around him now, but none of them showed any glimmer of understanding in response to this instruction.

‘You know what I’m talking about, yes?’ asked Jake. He glanced desperately from face to face for some sign of understanding.

‘Sorry, sir, we’ve not had that new diversity training yet,’ replied the officer holding the Heckler & Koch.

Jake shook his head. The kids he’d spoken to earlier had known what a burka was. How was it possible these armed police officers didn’t know this stuff?

He took a deep breath.

‘The suspect is wearing a robe from head to toe and has his face veiled. The garment is black or dark in colour, and he was last seen carrying a white handbag. He’s over six feet tall. We are looking for a
man
, not a woman!’

‘Do we know if he’s armed? Could he have a bomb?’ asked the officer who had been first on the scene.

‘I don’t know. But let’s ask ourselves that fucking question before shooting anyone else dead today, shall we? No assumptions! I want you speaking to people, in the station at the bus stops. Someone will have seen him, seen where he went. Talk to them. Ask questions. Find him. Go!’

The officers scattered in different directions.

Jake stood covered in blood, in the middle of the junction littered with police vehicles. The shoulders of his suit were now completely black.

Jake’s legs felt heavy, his head woozy. He suddenly had a vision that he was wearing a suit of armour covered in blood, the phone in his hand transformed into a shield bearing the George Cross; the scene the centre of a battle with marauding foreign warriors trying to take his crown. He stood atop a hill, his men sent to fight rampaging foreign thugs in all directions.

A National Express coach pulled out of the station and managed to weave its way onto Jake’s imaginary battlefield, pulling him back to reality. Then it was gone in a flash of white.

Jake stood there and replayed the coach pulling away in slow motion in his head, transfixed.

‘Burka,’ he heard himself say.

He’d seen it.

A slit in the dark material with just a pair of eyes looking back, staring at a badly bleeding man and wondering what had happened.

‘THE COACH! HE’S ON THE COACH!’ Jake screamed at two newly arrived police officers nearby. They spun round as Jake ran toward their marked police car.

Jake jumped into the driver’s seat. The keys were thankfully still in the ignition. The two officers followed him, one in the front and one in the back. The one in the front started screaming into the radio mike that was pinned to his chest. Jake didn’t hear what he said. Everything was going into slow motion. He was concentrating only on the back of the coach, which was now disappearing over the brow of a hill ahead of him. The junction was blocked. Only the pavement was free of traffic. Jake slammed the Vauxhall Astra into gear and sounded the horn as he mounted the pavement and drove down the pathway. People scattered in all directions to get out of the way.

‘Two tones. Put the two tones and lights on!’ Jake shouted at the officer sat next to him.

The officer hit a huge red button on the dashboard’s centre console and the car’s siren started wailing.

Jake left the pavement at 40 mph and hit the road just as they reached the brow of the hill. There was a squeal of tyres as Jake pushed the accelerator to the floor and sped over the top.

The coach was in sight.

Driving on the wrong side of the road, they gained on it quickly.

As they got closer, Jake could see the coach driver looking in his wing mirror. The coach’s brake lights went on. It slowed and stopped. Jake drove around it and blocked its path, preventing it from moving further. The three of them jumped out of the car.

Jake ran to the door, which was already opening with a pneumatic hiss, and stepped up and into the coach. There were terrified faces everywhere he looked, except one. One face up the aisle and to his left wasn’t looking at him. The head was turned away. When it came to face him, just the eyes were visible – the eyes through the slit in the burka. Jake noticed a white handbag sat in the luggage rack above the tall figure’s head.

There was no time to think. No time to be scared. Only time to do.

Jake pushed his way up the aisle and lurched toward the suspect, grasping a handful of the black material at the neck. Adrenalin filled every space in his body as he hauled the burka-clad figure from its seat and down the coach. Despite the weight and height of the suspect, there was no resistance as Jake dragged the figure down the stairs. Outside the coach, he pulled the suspect to the pavement, kneeled on their chest and partially pulled off the face veil.

It was a man.

Jake had got his man.

‘You are under arrest for terrorism. You tried to blow people up on a train. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court!’

41

Friday

22 July 2005

1822 hours

High-security custody suite, Paddington Green police station, central London

Jake gazed at the grey tiled floor as he slumped against one of the two sinks in the Gents, grateful that it bore his weight.

He looked up into the old mirror. A tired and bloodied man, whom he barely recognised, looked back at him. He needed to clean up, to go and buy a new shirt and suit. He stripped to his waist and began to wash the blood off.

Injuries hurt, but the pain went away. Wounds always healed and Jake was no stranger to them; he was a risk taker. The only fear he had was the fear of losing or coming second. These were options he tried not to entertain.

There were reasons for Jake’s bullishness. Growing up, he’d wanted to climb trees, ride bikes fast, run with the other kids; all things his mother didn’t like. So he had rebelled. He would do things that the other kids were too scared to do: skip from garage roof to garage roof, climb the wrought-iron drainpipe up the side of the flats; jump his BMX bike across the ravine at the woods.

When Jake did get hurt, he was surprised to find that the pain wasn’t that bad. He believed that his mother’s fear of danger was sorely misplaced.

Yet there were reasons for her fears.

Jake’s mother had lost two daughters in childbirth.

She’d never gotten over it. Jake often thought that if it hadn’t happened, he might not have existed. Things happen for a reason, he always reminded himself. If he could make his mark on the world, change the course of lives, then his existence on this planet was warranted. He was needed.

But at the back of his mind he’d lived with a nagging doubt. She’d always wanted daughters. Was he his mother’s wooden spoon? He had an urge to prove himself, to be the best in his mum’s eyes; to show her that he was made of tougher stuff.

The fearful think things are impossible.

The stupid don’t care or understand what you think.

The brave do things and worry later.

His head wound – a large cut to the left of his forehead – needed stitches, but it had finally stopped bleeding. The cut meant that his eyebrow drooped across his eye. It looked awful but he wasn’t aware of the pain. The stitches could wait until later. He might even meet a nice nurse who would flirt with him and give him some attention in the process. Going to the hospital was never bad in his book.

Jake dressed himself and made his way toward the custody suite.

Paddington Green police station was a strange, white sixties creation consisting of a central tower block surrounded by a triple-storey, five-sided building. It reminded Jake of a single birthday candle on a cupcake.

The first and second floors of the tower were restricted access. Beneath the tower, on a raised ground floor, was the custody suite used solely by the Anti-Terrorist Branch for their prisoners. They called it ‘the most secure police station in the country’ – a police station within a police station.

The place had been designed to hold IRA terror suspects in the 1980s. Blast doors, anti-ram barriers, CCTV and several full-time security guards kept the place secure – and kept the IRA out – should one of their own be held in the clink.

Jake went downstairs and buzzed to get into the secure holding area.

On his arrest at Golders Green, Samir had been given a sterile white forensic suit to wear over his burka. He’d then been transported in a car with its interior thoroughly covered in fresh plastic sheeting. The inside of the vehicle had looked to Jake like a scene from
ET
.

At the station, Samir had been placed directly in a cell with its floor and walls covered in fresh brown paper. Everything had been done to ensure that any potential evidence, such as explosives residue, was preserved on Samir’s body and his clothes. Nothing must be picked up along the way, or left behind.

Samir was taken out of his suit, then stripped, swabbed for explosives residue and redressed. His clothes were seized and replaced with a fresh forensics suit.

Then he was booked in, asked a series of questions by a custody sergeant and given information about his rights.

It took two hours until an urgent interview could be arranged – and that was before they’d even taken fingerprints.