First Response

LAMBETH CENTRAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMAND CENTRE (11.15 a.m.)

The Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre was at 109 Lambeth Road, and the three numbers were posted in huge white letters to the left of the four-storey building, a stone’s throw from the south bank of the River Thames. Kamran had to show his warrant card to get in, even though he was expected. He took the stairs down to the special operations room, which occupied the entire basement of the building. Sergeant Joe Lumley was waiting for him at the door, holding a mug of coffee. Kamran grinned as he took it. ‘You read my mind,’ he said. ‘And keep them coming.’

Kamran hadn’t specifically asked for Lumley so was pleasantly surprised to see that the sergeant had been assigned. He was a twenty-year veteran of the Met, a former Special Patrol Group officer, who was totally calm under pressure, the perfect number two on a day when the shit seemed to have well and truly hit the fan. ‘There’s an inspector manning the fort but I thought I should give you a heads-up before you go in,’ said Lumley.

‘Good idea,’ said Kamran. ‘They’re saying Operation Plato, is that right?’

‘Three hostage situations in play and an AVR had sight of a suicide vest. They’re releasing their demands through social media at the moment but we haven’t made contact with any of the terrorists yet.’

‘What time did this kick off?’

‘There were tweets and Facebook postings about the first incident from five past ten onwards,’ said Lumley. ‘The second incident was at Wandsworth and social media there kicked off at ten twenty-five. Now we have another in Fulham. I’ve put myself next to you in the Gold Command suite, and because of the nature of the threat I’ve put the MI5 rep there too.’

‘Five are here already?’

Lumley nodded. ‘Yes, she’s in your suite until you decide where to put her. And there’s an SAS captain just arrived. He doesn’t seem to require a workstation so at the moment he’s just floating around.’

‘Fire Brigade, Ambulance?’

‘Already here.’

‘And who’s the TFC?’ The tactical firearms commander was an inspector who was responsible for the sixteen armed-response vehicles stationed around the capital.

‘Marty Windle.’

Kamran nodded his approval. Inspector Windle was a safe pair of hands. ‘Okay, into the lion’s den,’ he said.

Lumley pulled open the door and Kamran stepped into the special operations room. It was half the size of a football field, with no windows, just banks of fluorescent lights overhead. It was filled with dozens of pod-like workstations, several of which were already occupied by shirt-sleeved police officers, their triple screens filed with data and CCTV feeds. To his left were two suites, one for himself as Gold Commander and next to it the Silver Command suite where the various commanding officers could hold their own briefings.

At the far end of the room there were four pods, each made up of three desks in a triangle, all with the same high-backed black ergonomic chairs. To the left was the Diplomatic Protection Group pod and next to it the pod used by SCO19, the armed police. The DPG were armed and SCO19 could draw on their resources as needed. Marty Windle was at one of the desks and waved an acknowledgement to Kamran. Kamran waved back. The pod in the middle of the group was manned by the Pan London support staff, who handled outgoing calls to the various units around the capital. At the far right were the pods of the London Ambulance Service and the Fire Brigade. Spaced across the room there were white supporting pillars a metre or so in diameter, and a dozen or so whiteboards on stands for when a scribbled note was more efficient than the keyboard.

Closer to the door a pod of supervisors looked after the support staff and next to them the General Policing Command pod was generally staffed by a chief inspector and an inspector. Dozens of other pods could be staffed by whatever resources the Gold Commander considered necessary, usually one police sergeant and two constables or civilians. ‘According to the deputy commissioner, I’m the interim Gold Commander,’ said Kamran. ‘Let’s make sure everything is up and running by the time my replacement gets here.’

Kamran strode over to the Gold Command suite, where a woman in her late twenties was waiting at a desk. She stood up and smiled. She was short, just over five feet tall, with blonde hair and a sprinkling of freckles across a snub nose. She held out her hand confidently, even though she had to tilt her head back to look him in the eyes. ‘Lynne Waterman,’ she said. ‘Here to help in any way I can.’

‘Pleasure to meet you,’ said Kamran, putting his briefcase and coffee mug on his workstation, then shaking her hand. It felt tiny and he took care not to squeeze too hard. He doubted that she had given her real name; MI5 officers almost never did. ‘Have you been in a special operations room before?’

‘First time,’ she said. ‘Though I know how it works, obviously.’

‘Sergeant Lumley can get you settled at the workstation next to mine,’ he said. ‘I think I’m going to be needing a lot of intel from you.’

Lumley took the MI5 officer to the neighbouring workstation as Kamran removed his jacket and slung it over the back of his chair. An inspector in shirt sleeves came over. ‘Superintendent Kamran, Inspector Adams. I’ve been holding the fort until you got here.’

They shook hands. ‘We haven’t met before?’ Adams was in his thirties, slightly overweight with receding hair and square-lensed glasses with thick black frames.

‘I was with the Fraud Squad, transferred to the command two weeks ago,’ he said. ‘Trial by fire, from the look of it.’

‘First name?’

‘Ian.’

‘Right, Ian, bring me up to speed,’ said Kamran, sitting down and picking up his mug.

The inspector nodded. ‘There are three suicide bombers, all of them holding hostages. One in Brixton, one in Wandsworth, one in Fulham. We have three ARVs at the Brixton location, including a supervisor vehicle. There’s another supervisor vehicle at Wandsworth with another ARV. There’s one ARV at the Fulham location with Trojan One en route.’

Trojan One was the inspector’s vehicle, the most senior officer on the ARVs. The supervisor vehicles had sergeants on board. Trojan Ones were also known as kit cars as they carried extra weapons, ammunition and various items of equipment to help them gain entry to buildings.

‘As this is being treated as a terrorist incident radios have to be in TXI mode, right?’ Transmission inhibit mode meant that personal and vehicle radios were prevented from searching for transmitter sites as that could accidentally detonate a device. Personal radios were not to be used at all within fifteen metres of a device, and for vehicle-based radios that was increased to fifty metres.

‘That’s in hand, sir.’

‘Negotiators?’

‘All en route,’ said the inspector.

‘So no one is talking to them?’ asked Kamran.

‘No, but social media is going into meltdown,’ said Adams. ‘Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, the works. The bombers are allowing their hostages to use their phones.’

‘Wonderful,’ said Kamran. ‘How are we monitoring that?’

‘At the moment we’re all looking at the various feeds.’

‘Right, I need one person collating everything. Anything important copied immediately to Sergeant Lumley. How are we doing with CCTV feeds?’

There were close to half a million CCTV cameras in London and the centre had access to all those controlled by the government and the local authorities.

‘We have coverage of all three locations but, to be honest, you can get better pictures on television. All the news sources are there, Sky, the BBC, ITV, the works. The TV cameras started arriving within minutes of the hostages tweeting.’

‘What about helicopters?’ The Metropolitan Police’s Air Support Unit had three Eurocopter EC145 helicopters equipped with night-vision and infrared cameras, which could be used as aerial observation and communication platforms.

The inspector smiled awkwardly. ‘Ah, didn’t think of that.’

‘Let’s get as many up as we can,’ said Kamran. ‘Now, what are their demands?’

‘The tweets and Facebook postings all say the same,’ said the inspector. ‘There are six former ISIS fighters being held in Belmarsh Prison. All six are to be released and taken to Biggin Hill airport where they want to fly out on a twin-engined jet.’

‘Well I wish them good luck with that,’ said Kamran. ‘What do we know about the explosives they have?’

‘We’re analysing CCTV footage at the moment but in the pictures we’ve seen they’re wearing coats.’

‘We need an explosives expert here,’ said Kamran.

‘I’ve already put a call out to the Bomb Squad. They’re sending someone over from Euston,’ said Adams. The Metropolitan Police was unique in that it had its own bomb-disposal team on staff. Other forces around the country called on the expertise of the army, in particular the 11EOD Regiment of the Royal Logistic Corps. They formed part of the Terrorism Command — SO15 — and were based at the old Traffic Police garage at Drummond Crescent, not far from Euston station.

‘Good,’ said Kamran. ‘Now, we’re going to need to ID the hostage-takers as soon as possible. We need CCTV and photographers at the various locations. As soon as we get a clear shot, pass it to Joe and he’ll run facial recognition.’ He looked at Sergeant Lumley. ‘Liaise with Five, obviously.’

‘Will do, sir,’ said Lumley.

‘And let’s get the details of the six ISIS prisoners they’re referring to.’

A young female officer stood up from her terminal and waved at the inspector. ‘There’s another one, sir!’ she shouted. ‘Kensington. A childcare centre!’