Fortress

82

Bob Heron, the chief constable of Hertfordshire Police was not in the habit of getting personal calls from the home secretary, and certainly not at two a.m.

At first he assumed it was someone’s idea of a hoax, a bloody unfunny one. But something about Sarah Garvey’s free use of expletives — to the effect that he’d better sit the fuck up and pay fucking attention NOW — suggested this was the real thing.

‘Yes, ma’am. I completely understand, ma’am. Consider it done.’

In any other circumstances he would have been inclined to have a quiet word with the Met commissioner about this, but the home secretary had made it very clear that his promotion prospects — and Herts, let’s face it, was a bit of a backwater — were directly connected to his ability to keep this one to himself and just get it done.

So he did what any sensible chief constable would do in those circumstances and called his deputy with the details of who to liaise with at MI5. ‘We’ve got next to nothing to go on, so belt and braces. Firearms team fully bombed up. Maximum care — we don’t know who’s in there, what they’ve got and if they know how to use it. But keep the guys under control — I want no dead bodies we have to go to court over. Just get it done quickly and do not advertise. Use some tact and surprise for once.’

But the occupants of the garage had prepared for just such an eventuality. The blast blew the front roller door clean off and littered the street with shrapnel from the disintegrating breeze blocks. And by the time Tom and Woolf rolled up, forensics had found the remains of three men and, on the face of it, not much else but a charred mess.

‘Basically they had the place wired and ready,’ the Herts DI, who had taken charge of the site, explained mournfully.

A team in white coveralls were picking over the place with scrupulous attention. Even in this blackened, ruined state it was a potential treasure trove of information. There were several round plastic tubs about a foot deep, containing wholesale quantities of chapati flour and black pepper, along with plastic jerry-cans of hydrogen peroxide, every bomber’s hairdressing product of choice. Littered about the floor were a lot of triple-A batteries and the remains of several digital clocks and cheap mobile phones — all the components for homemade timers and detonators. And every one of these items, one of the team noted drily, was freely available on the high street.

But the premises wasn’t just used for bomb-making: there was evidence of makeshift sleeping quarters, with three camp beds and inflatable mattresses, a washing-machine and a clothes-airer hung with T-shirts.

Tom found Rafiq in less than triumphant mood. ‘Hey, you tracked it down. This is a direct connection to Zuabi. It changes everything. We’ll find out who these guys were and we’ve got their vehicle, so we can do retrospective number-plate recognition. You should be very proud.’

Rafiq looked pained. ‘After everything you went through in Texas, the least we could have done was not fuck this up.’

‘Bullshit. These guys had planned and prepared for this shit. If you’d gone in there you’d have been history. No amount of planning would have guaranteed against this going tits up. So don’t worry about it. You’re still alive, they aren’t — simple as that.’

One of the men in white chipped in: ‘And at least it’s over. The clock’s not ticking on this little bundle of fun. So we can take our time and make the most of what we’ve got here.’

Tom didn’t feel that it was over, but he had no concrete reason for thinking that. Just as he was reflecting on it, another of the forensics team yelled for quiet. Everything stopped.

The forensics guy was a small man in a disposable suit and shoe covers. He’d stepped back from a now pitted and scorched green-painted door. It was clearly reinforced, having taken the concussion wave of the blast and all the secondary missiles that the explosion would have ripped apart and hurled about the garage at supersonic speed.

The forensics guy put out a hand to open the door.

Tom grabbed Rafiq and pulled him with him as he instinctively stepped back. ‘Stop! Stop!’

It was too late. The door was open, but only to reveal darkness. The guy’s torch penetrated the gloom. ‘We’ve got a body,’ he said. ‘I think it’s alive.’

Tom let go of Rafiq and headed for the door. ‘Leave it! Don’t go in!’

He took the torch from him. ‘Get a couple of firearms guys.’

The forensics techie ran off and Tom scanned the darkness with the torch-beam. First impressions had been right. There was a body, face-down, feet towards the door, about three metres in.

And there was movement.

Shallow breathing.

Tom shone the torch on the soles of the feet, which were grimed with layers of filth as if their owner had walked through tar. He tilted the torch to try to get eyes-on, see if the guy was reacting to the light. He couldn’t even tell if his eyes were open — it was the wrong angle. ‘You! You on the mattress! Sit up and show your hands!’

Tom got no reply. He quickly checked the doorframe, then around the narrow, damp concrete cell.

Two firearms officers turned up in full black gear, slightly out of breath with all the body armour on. They peered into the darkness.

‘I think he’s breathing but I’m getting no reaction to commands. I’ll go in, but here’s what I want you two to do.’

Tom rested his hand on the taller one’s shoulder. Physical contact was always good in these situations. It made things more personal: it meant they might go the extra mile if Tom landed up in the shit.

A small crowd had gathered in the doorway to look at the body. Tom kept his hand on the policeman’s shoulder, but directed himself at the crowd first. ‘If it’s booby-trapped, we’re all going to be history. You need to move out now, go on — go.’

His hand was still on the taller officer’s shoulder. ‘Switch on your weapon torch and keep aiming at him all the time. Centre mass of his head. Don’t aim at the body. If he’s got a device and the explosives are homemade, a round will detonate it. And don’t come in. Get an angle into his head from the doorway.’

Tom turned to the other policeman. ‘Okay, what I need you to do is get down on the ground right on the threshold, and use your torch to check under the body when I move it. You okay with that?’

There was a nod.

So far, so good.

‘I’m going to lie down on his right, right against him — almost spooning him. I’m going to grab him and lift him up, almost over me, so you can check there’s nothing underneath. All right?’

He faced the taller one. ‘That’s when you’re going to come into play. If anything is under that body, your mate will shout, “Device!” I’ll drop him and roll out the way, and you just get rounds into his head. You need to drop him like liquid so he can’t detonate. Easy…’

Tom gave a little smile. These lads were doing thirty-seven-and-a-half-hour weeks; they went home; they had mortgages; they had loans on their cars — and they’d be going on holiday with their wives and kids. If they didn’t get blown up.

‘Just one thing. If I shout, “Fire!” that’s what you do. All right? Let’s go.’

Tom let the two officers take position as he waited to the right of the doorframe. As soon as the body was illuminated once more, he started in.

‘If you’re injured, show me. Move your leg, move your foot, move your toe. Just use your feet to show me that you understand. Move nothing but your feet. Can you hear me? Do you understand?’

There was no response as Tom moved to the right side of the body. The two police torches shone on it, illuminating the left wall of damp and pitted concrete.

He moved to the right of the ripped and soiled mattress to be out of the taller one’s arc of fire. His torch picked out the mass of hair on the head and the beard. He checked the floor for any tell-tales, any wires, any tape, anything that could indicate there was a device, even under the body. As he got closer, the smell became more rank. The guy hadn’t washed for weeks, maybe months.

Tom could finally see parts of his face in more detail. The beard was matted, wet with saliva that dribbled out of his mouth. Tom lay down to his right, hard up against him so the body would partly shield him from any blast that came from under him. He didn’t bother trying for eye-to-eye.

‘Ready!’

He pulled back so the stinking body was almost halfway over him and what he got in reply was what he wanted to hear.

‘Clear!’

Tom let go and the man rolled back onto his face, Tom rolling the other way and back onto his feet. He grabbed hold of the heap and, as he turned it over, twisted a fistful of face hair to get a reaction.

The lips moved, but that was it.