First Response

LAMBETH CENTRAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMAND CENTRE (12.18 p.m.)

‘Another one’s just come in,’ said Lumley, standing up. ‘A bus in Tavistock Square.’

‘Please don’t tell me it’s a number thirty,’ said Kamran.

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Lumley.

Kamran groaned. There had been four suicide bombs in London on the morning of 7 July 2005. Three had been on Tube trains. The fourth, the final one, was detonated on the top deck of a number thirty double-decker bus in Tavistock Square, close to the headquarters of the British Medical Association, killing thirteen people and injuring dozens more. ‘This can’t be a coincidence,’ said Kamran. ‘Not when it happens on the tenth anniversary of Seven/Seven. On the same bloody bus. Bastards, bastards, bastards.’ He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then patted Lumley on the shoulder. ‘Liaise with SCO19, Bomb Squad, Fire and Ambulance. And let’s get the helicopter overhead. Where is it now?’

‘Marble Arch.’

‘Move it to Tavistock Square. As soon as you know who the Silver Commander is there, let me know.’

‘Will do,’ said Lumley, picking up his phone.

Waterman stood up and came across. ‘That’s a bit of a game-changer, isn’t it? A bus. Tavistock Square.’

‘Like I said, it can’t be a coincidence. But why aren’t we seeing them on the Tube? And Seven/Seven was never about hostages, it was about mass killings.’

‘This lot are different,’ said Waterman. ‘This is ISIS and they’ve always been good at PR. They know that by replaying the Seven/Seven bus they’ll get more coverage. People will talk about it, exactly as we’re doing now.’

Kamran sighed. ‘It’s obviously been well planned,’ he said. ‘Was there nothing to suggest that anything like this was coming?’

‘The threat level has been severe for some time, but that’s more a reflection on the number of jihadists in the country rather than a specific threat.’

‘You’d have thought there’d be something. This number of targets, so many people involved, you’d have thought someone would have talked.’

‘Attacks on shopping malls and public places, yes, they’re always being discussed. But individual attacks like this across the city, co-ordinated and planned? No, no one knew this was coming.’

Kamran walked out into the main room and headed for the SCO19 pod. The desks were laid out so that eight people could work facing each other. Inspector Windle was on his feet, talking animatedly into his headset. ‘I know resources are running thin but we need at least two ARVs in Tavistock Square now.’ He took off his headset. ‘This just gets worse, doesn’t it?’

‘How are you fixed for vehicles?’

‘We’re not. All I can do now is move assets around.’

‘Where’s Captain Murray?’

‘He’s a smoker. Haven’t you noticed he pops out every half-hour or so?’

‘How many of his men do you have?’

‘Eight so far. They’re two apiece at the first four locations. That’s in addition to the six we already had embedded with ARV units. There’s another Chinook on the way from Hereford with eight more.’

‘And how are they getting on with your people?’

‘Good as gold, so far. Our guys do a lot of training with the SAS and while there’s a fair bit of healthy competition there’s mutual respect too.’ He put his hand up to his headset. ‘Sorry. I’ve another call coming in.’ He turned his back on Kamran to take it. The main screen was showing Sky News. They had managed to get their own helicopter above Tavistock Square and were transmitting an overhead view of the bus.

Kamran walked to the pods on the far side of the special operations room where the Ambulance and Fire services were based. The officer liaising with the Fire Brigade was a familiar face — a twenty-year veteran called Danny King — but Kamran hadn’t met the London Ambulance representatives before and took the time to introduce himself to the two men and one woman sitting there. ‘How do we stand?’ he asked.

‘We’ve got ambulances and paramedics at each location and they’ve all made contact with the respective Silver Commanders,’ said the senior Ambulance official. His name was Alfie Robins and he was a balding man in his fifties, who appeared to be making copious notes on a clipboard. ‘We also have A & E departments at all hospitals in the vicinity on standby,’ he said.

Kamran nodded his approval and looked over at King, who wasn’t as gung-ho but, then, pessimism seemed to be his regular frame of mind. ‘We’re stretched,’ King said glumly.

‘Do you have an appliance at each location?’

King pulled a face. ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘We’re really stretched in the West End so what we’ve done is paired up the locations and sited the appliances midway. We have one between Brixton and Wandsworth, another between Fulham and Kensington. Then we have individual appliances at Marble Arch and Marylebone. And we’re en route to Tavistock Square.’

‘What’s the story with the Southside centre?’

‘Actually, Southside is the least of our problems,’ said King. ‘It’s now been evacuated and they have a state-of-the-art fire-control system in place. Worst possible scenario and the bomb detonates, the immediate damage will be confined to the shop area and the sprinklers will come on automatically. We’ve had a look at the building plans and there’s no danger of damage to the floors above or below. If the blast spreads sideways, the sprinklers will kick in. Also there’s no gas in the building, so other than the initial blast, damage will be minimal. The church in Brixton is also not much of a fire risk. There isn’t much flammable inside and no gas on the premises. The bus is a bugger but it’s outside and the square is in the process of being evacuated. If you recall the bus that exploded there in 2005, there was very little collateral damage. Everyone remembers the bus with the top blown off. Catastrophic damage, but confined to the vehicle.’

King picked up a bottle of water and took a swig. ‘That’s the good news. Or, at least, the less bad news. The really bad news is that the four other locations are absolute bastards. They’re all part of terraces and all have gas plumbed in. The childcare centre has apartments above it, as does the coffee shop in Marble Arch. There are shops around the post office in Fulham and the pub in Marylebone, all full of flammable stuff and with gas mains. An explosion in any of those four could set off a devastating chain reaction.’

‘So we need as many appliances as we can get on standby,’ said Kamran.

‘I hear you, and we’re doing what we can, but we’ve suffered cuts as deep as you guys have. And we still have to maintain our regular coverage. Two or three events like this and we wouldn’t have a problem. But seven?’ He grimaced.

As Kamran headed back to the Gold Command suite he saw Murray returning, a transceiver pressed against his ear. Kamran waved him over and the SAS captain finished his call and headed towards him. ‘There’s another one, in Tavistock Square. A bus.’

‘Same as Seven/Seven,’ said Murray. ‘That can’t be a coincidence.’

‘Marty says you have eight more troopers on the way.’

The captain looked at his watch, a rugged Breitling with several dials. ‘ETA fifteen minutes.’

‘What else can you offer us in the way of manpower? I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them.’

‘There’s a major training exercise going on in the Brecon Beacons so we’ve got a chopper going out to pick up another eight. But they’ll have to be taken to Hereford to re-equip so it’ll be a couple of hours before they’re on the ground.’

‘Just keep them coming,’ said Kamran. ‘I suspect that before this is over we’ll need every man you can send us.’