Close Call

Chapter 58

It took eighteen minutes to reach the warehouse from Police HQ. They went in convoy, three cars in all. Chief Superintendent Lazarus stayed behind in the Ops Room to coordinate the operation. Liz drove with Chief Constable Pearson in his BMW; his driver, Tom, had turned the heater on high to melt the frost on the windows – the car had been standing outside waiting for the call to move and was cold inside as well as out.

At first there was no conversation in the car. They were listening to the radio transmissions as police cars converged on the industrial estate. Two ambulances were not far behind.

Then Pearson broke the silence. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here tonight.’

‘Well—’ she began, then found herself with nothing more to say. She hadn’t expected to find herself here either. It seemed unreal. But she was grateful for the almost frantic sequence of events, since it kept her from thinking of the terrible happenings in Paris the night before. The night before? Incredibly it was only last night, even though it seemed to be days since she had first heard the news of Martin’s murder.

Pearson said, ‘I’m delighted that you’re here. Don’t get me wrong, I think young Peggy is extremely good. But I know she was glad when you showed up.’ He paused to listen to a burst of radio transmission then said, ‘I think you’re pretty remarkable, frankly, after the twenty-four hours you’ve had.’

‘I wanted to see things through,’ Liz said.

‘Of course. But listen, if this gets too much for you at any point, just let me know. Tom will drive you back to Police HQ and sort you out with one of our guest rooms. Then you can pick things up again tomorrow.’

The driver nodded. ‘I’ll be with the car. Just let me know if you want to go.’

‘That’s kind of you, but honestly—’

Pearson lifted a hand to interrupt. ‘Understood. Just remember if you change your mind, the offer holds.’

As they approached the trading estate they could see a ghoulish glow created by the dim sodium lights that lined the narrow strips of road and trailed off into the industrial enclave. Tom drove quickly, following the other two cars, turning right then left into a kind of cul de sac, at the end of which was a tarmac apron in front of a large metal ­warehouse. Scrubby grass and undergrowth filled the spaces between the warehouse and the adjacent buildings, derelict-looking brick and concrete workshops.

A lone policeman stood at the front of the tarmac, waving a flashlight to steer them around a small area which was marked by traffic cones. Behind the cones something lay on the ground covered by a tarpaulin sheet. With a jolt, Liz realised she was looking at McManus’s dead body. They were now part of the drama that they’d been watching on the screens in the Ops Room. She felt as if she had stepped from the audience onto the stage.

Three police vans and an ambulance were already neatly parked and Tom pulled up beside them. Another two cars bringing Peggy and some more uniformed officers had just arrived. Liz and Pearson followed the policemen into the warehouse, stepping gingerly over Jackson’s body, which was still lying in the entrance, also under a sheet.

Two members of the armed team were inside. One stood guard over Zara, who was handcuffed, sitting on a wooden crate. He was staring vacantly into space, pointedly ignoring the people around him. The other armed officer was trying to calm down the women, who had emerged from their tiny bedroom compartment at the side of the warehouse. The youngest was still shaking but now she was screaming too and tears were running down her face. Another, who seemed to be the oldest, was clawing at the arm of the policeman and shouting, ‘Not to shoot.’

The policeman was trying to unhook her hands and saying, ‘I’m not going to shoot you. You are quite safe here.’

But he was having no effect. The women were all clearly terrified and Liz couldn’t blame them; two men had been shot dead nearby less than half an hour after their arrival. This was not what they thought they’d come to England for.

‘Where’s the lorry driver?’ asked Liz, suddenly realising that someone was missing.

The armed policeman pointed to the cab. ‘He locked himself in when the shooting started. I’ve been trying to coax him out, but he’s scared to death.’

‘At least we know where he is. We’ll get to him in a minute,’ said Chief Constable Pearson. ‘First I want these women out of the way. Put them somewhere until we decide what to do with them.’

Peggy, who had come in behind Liz, stepped forward and touched the arm of the woman who was clutching at the policeman.

‘Come with me,’ she said in a gentle voice. ‘No one’s going to hurt you. Let’s go and see if we can make some coffee. Then I’ll ask someone to get you something to eat.’

The woman let go of the policeman and grasped Peggy’s hand. She looked at Peggy’s face with frightened, anxious eyes, then after a moment she turned to the others and said something. It seemed to calm them, and then, like a mother hen, Peggy rounded up the little group and ushered them back towards the bedroom.

The armed policeman, the Chief Constable and Liz all watched in silence. A silence that was broken when one of the policemen came up to the group and asked, ‘When we search the lorry, what are we looking for, sir?’

Pearson looked at Liz. She said, ‘Guns and grenades. The firearms are probably a mix of assault rifles and handguns. And a lot of ammunition – they asked for twenty thousand rounds. That will take up a fair amount of space.’

Pearson said, ‘I’m sure the driver knows where the cargo is hidden, so we should talk to him first. But whatever he says, take it slowly. I don’t want anything going off because someone gets impatient.’

The other officer had joined them. ‘I’ve frisked the suspect, sir,’ he said, pointing to Zara. ‘He wasn’t armed.’

Liz asked, ‘Was he carrying any ID?’

‘No.’

‘How about valuables? Any cash?’

‘He only had a few quid in his pocket, but he had something else worth a hell of a lot of money. A ticket for the derby tomorrow, at Old Trafford.’ He handed the ticket to Liz. As she studied it, he added, ‘They’re like gold dust.’

Liz handed the ticket to Pearson, and said, ‘We’ve dug pretty deep into young Atiyah’s past but I’ve never seen anything in the file about a love of football. Nor that he had the money to fund this sort of expense.’ She turned to the policeman. ‘Do you ever go to Old Trafford?’

‘I’ve been known to attend a match,’ he admitted.

‘Do they search you when you go through the gates?’

‘No. It wouldn’t be practical. You’ve got sixty thousand people going in in a short time. The queues would go back for miles if they searched everyone. They tried it for the Olympics and it caused chaos.’

Pearson was looking on with growing apprehension. He said, ‘It’s cold enough now for everyone in the crowd to be bundled up. You could smuggle a weapon or a grenade in under an overcoat easily enough if there’s no proper searching.’

‘Exactly,’ said Liz. ‘And if you had six people in different parts of the stadium, then even if one got spotted you’d have five others who might not have been.’

The policeman said, ‘To do what? Shoot Wayne Rooney?’ He gave a weak laugh. ‘And why do you say “six people”? The suspect only had the one ticket.’

Pearson didn’t bother to explain. He saw what Liz was driving at, and he said, ‘So the other jihadis must already have their tickets. Which means—’

‘It means they’ve arrived and are holed up somewhere nearby.’ Liz pointed towards the solitary figure of Atiyah, sitting in handcuffs on the wooden crate, then asked the policeman, ‘Are you sure he didn’t have anything else on him? Anything at all – a crumpled bus ticket, or a pocket comb. Anything.’

The officer shook his head. ‘No, and he didn’t say a word – he wouldn’t even tell me his name. I don’t think you’ll get much out of him.’

Pearson said to Liz, ‘Do you want to have a go here or wait until we take him back to headquarters?’

‘Here please.’ It was critical to try to get Atiyah to talk before he had time to collect his thoughts and invent a story – or just clam up and ask for a lawyer.

As Liz started to walk over to Atiyah, Peggy, who had come back from tending the Dagestan women, intercepted her. ‘Could I have a word, Liz?’ She held up her mobile phone. ‘I’ve just had a message relayed from Thames House. It could be important.’

‘Give me two minutes, Peggy. I need to talk to Zara urgently.’ And she strode over and stood in front of Atiyah. He ignored her, continuing to stare out towards the parked cars on the hard standing in front of the warehouse.

Liz said, ‘You all right? You didn’t get hurt in the shooting?’

He didn’t reply. His eyes remained focused on the distance, trance-like. For a moment Liz wondered if he was drugged, but then she remembered him from the video feed – he had been perfectly lively then, even aggressive. She said, ‘Tell me if you got hurt; there are paramedics here now.’ When he still didn’t reply, Liz said softly, ‘Mika, we know who you are.’

This time he blinked. For a moment Liz thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t. She went on, ‘We know the lorry has brought other things into the country, besides the women and the mattresses. We’re going to start searching it in a minute or two. When we find what we’re looking for, you’ll be arrested.

‘But that’s not all we’re searching for. I think you know that. At least five of your colleagues have entered the country from Yemen; I think they’re supposed to meet you once you’ve collected the guns that are in the lorry. I didn’t realise you were interested in football – are your colleagues going to the match too?’

He flinched slightly, then pursed his lips. Liz went on, ‘I’m certain we’ll be able to find them, especially if they show up at the match tomorrow.’ She was watching him carefully. Without these guns, his comrades shouldn’t be able to do much even if they made it inside the stadium next day – unless… And Liz shuddered at the thought. Unless they already had other weapons.

The only way to be sure was to find them. She suddenly hated the idea that Martin might have died for nothing; that despite the sacrifice of his life, and all their efforts, these terrorists might still manage to launch an attack. If only Zara could be made to talk. But looking at him she realised he was determined to give nothing away – he had adopted the same vacant stare again, as if transfixed.

Liz said, her voice hardening, ‘Your colleagues will go down all right. But the big loser is going to be you, Mika, because you’re the one we can tie to the guns we’re about to find. We clocked you a long time ago, and you’ve been followed ever since. We watched your meeting in Primrose Hill, and the dealer you saw there is in custody in France. He’s told us everything we need to put you away. I reckon you’re facing thirty years. You might get out in time for the 2040 Olympics. Just think how old you’ll be then.’

Liz gave a sigh. ‘It’s not as if you will have helped your cause very much, either. But there is a way you can help yourself, a way you could be out of prison in just a few years – you’d still have a life left. But, Mika, you have to tell us where the others are.’

Atiyah continued to sit impassively and Liz realised she was hitting a brick wall. He was obviously a fully signed up jihadi. This was his martyrdom and if she had said two hundred years in prison instead of thirty, he would have been pleased. She made one last try: ‘We’re going to catch your colleagues anyway; it’s just going to speed things up if you tell us where they are. Think about what I’m saying; soon it’ll be too late for me to help you.’

Atiyah turned his head very slowly, and for the first time Liz felt hopeful that he might reply. His eyes met hers, and he held her gaze as his lips began to move. Then his mouth opened and he spat in her face.

Liz jerked back in surprise. She tried to collect herself, and wiped the spittle from her cheek with the sleeve of her coat. She was determined not to show her shock, or anger. She said calmly, ‘If you help us, I promise you I will do everything in my power to help you.’ A thought came suddenly into her head. She added, ‘I’ll also make sure your mother doesn’t get dragged into this.’

Atiyah’s eyes flared for an instant, and for a moment Liz thought he would spit at her again. But then he regained control, and his eyes resumed their opaque stare.

Liz turned round and saw that Pearson was waiting, standing halfway between her and the lorry. She shrugged as she walked towards him, leaving Atiyah in the care of his armed guard. Peggy was there too, waiting for her, and Liz remembered that she had something to tell her.

In the background, behind Pearson, three policemen had approached the lorry, gesturing to the driver to come out of the cab. One of them went round to the driver’s side and climbed up on the step next to the door of the cab. He knocked on the glass and shouted through the window, ‘Open up. We want to talk to you.’

The Chief Constable and Peggy turned round and Liz stopped and watched as the policeman, losing patience, shouted, ‘Open up, or we’ll have to smash the window.’

The driver was looking frightened – though suddenly Liz wondered if that was an act. She was about to shout a warning when she saw the man slide across the front seat of the cab to the passenger side. Opening the door, he leapt down just as two of the policemen came round the front of the lorry.

They were less than ten feet away when from the pocket of his pea jacket the driver drew out a small grenade. With his free hand he prised the pin off, then chucked the grenade underhand, like a child playing rounders.

The nearest policeman to him flinched and turned away with his arms holding his head. The grenade landed on the cement floor, just missing the policeman, then bounced high in the air, angled towards… towards Liz. She tensed, waiting for it to explode. There was nowhere to go and nothing she could do.

Then an outstretched arm, black-clad, with silver on its shoulder, reached out and grabbed the grenade as it started to come down. In one quick motion the arm then threw the grenade straight out of the open front of the warehouse.

It travelled twenty yards and hit with a sharp thump on the tarmac forecourt, where it promptly exploded. As dirt-coloured shards burst through the air, the noise of the explosion was astonishingly small, almost muffled. But it was followed by a series of sharp pings – the shrapnel was hitting the sides of the parked police cars.

Pearson ran to the front of the warehouse. ‘Who’s hit?’ he shouted. But the two ambulance attendants had been shielded from the blast by one of the police cars. They looked dazed but unhurt. Tom, the Chief’s driver, was the sole policeman outside, and he’d been in his car on the radio. He held a hand up to show he was OK.

Visibly relieved, Pearson came back into the warehouse, where the driver had been wrestled to the ground and handcuffed. As an armed policeman watched him, Atiyah at last showed some emotion – he was smiling broadly.

‘Are you all right, Liz?’ asked Pearson.

She nodded. ‘Just surprised to be breathing. For a moment I was sure that was it.’ She looked at Pearson. ‘This is the first time I’ve had to thank anyone for saving my life. Thank you very much.’

‘Pure instinct,’ he said. ‘I was in the Territorial Army and sometimes it seemed half our training was about dealing with incendiary devices and grenades. Never had to use it then.’ He shook his head. ‘And never thought I’d have to use it here. There must have been something wrong with that grenade, but thank God there was.’

Behind them they heard a quiet groan. Liz turned and saw Peggy squatting down against the side wall of the warehouse. She was holding her arm, which was bleeding badly just below the elbow.

‘Were you hit?’ Liz asked.

Peggy grimaced and slumped down, her back against the wall and her legs splayed out in front of her, flat on the floor. As Liz rushed to her, Pearson said, ‘I’ll get a paramedic.’

Liz crouched down next to Peggy. She saw at once that the wound was bad; shrapnel had ripped through the layers of sweater and shirt Peggy wore; there was a deep jagged cut in her forearm, which was bleeding profusely.

She saw Peggy’s eyes glaze and start to shut. The girl was going into shock. ‘Peggy!’ Liz shouted, and the eyes fluttered open, stared vaguely at Liz, then shut again.

The paramedic had arrived and Liz stood up to get out of his way. As he examined Peggy’s arm, she moaned in pain, and he took a syringe and vial out of his pack and injected something into Peggy’s other arm. Morphine, Liz guessed; the pain of the shrapnel piece must be excruciating.

Two more paramedics arrived, carrying a stretcher between them. They carefully lifted Peggy onto it, then carried her towards one of the ambulances parked on the tarmac outside.

The medic who had injected Peggy looked at Liz. ‘She should be fine, but we need to get her seen to properly right away – that’s a nasty wound she’s got. Do you want to come with us in the ambulance?’

Liz hesitated. She wanted to be with Peggy, but there was still everything to play for. She shook her head. ‘I’m still needed here. But please keep me posted.’

Pearson was on his phone, but he rang off when he saw Liz. He said, ‘We’re going to have to make a decision about the match.’

She nodded. ‘I know. It’s your call of course, but I’m worried about these other jihadis. We just have no idea where they are or whether they have any weapons. I would hazard a guess that they haven’t, but there are no guarantees. They might have access to some cache somewhere.’

‘Yes. You’re right. And if they do turn up at the match armed or carrying explosives of some kind, we can’t be sure we’ll be able to stop them getting in. We’ve got the seat number of Atiyah’s ticket, but even if we searched everyone with a seat in the same block we might not catch them. They could have seats in any part of the ground.’

The Chief Constable was frowning. ‘I’m beginning to think we have no option but to cancel the match. We can’t take the risk. But if we do it’s going to cause an immense furore. There’ll be chaos on the streets, the media will have a field day, the Home Secretary will get drawn in and all of us including your Service will come in for a load of criticism. I need to speak to the Home Office before we do anything and you’ll want to talk to your management too.’

Liz looked at her watch. It was now a quarter past five. ‘I’ll get on to the Duty Officer. DG will certainly want to be informed.’

Pearson looked round the warehouse. ‘We’re not needed here any more. We’ll go back to HQ and set up a conference call and then everyone can have their say and get themselves prepared for the shit storm we’re going to face. We can start the ball rolling while we drive back.’