First Response

LAMBETH CENTRAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMAND CENTRE (3.40 p.m.)

‘How long do you think the Joint Intelligence Committee is going to take to reach a decision?’ Kamran asked Gillard. He gestured at the clock on the wall. ‘It’s three forty. Two hours and twenty minutes to go.’

‘My guess is that they’re trying not to reach a decision because whatever they decide is going to be wrong. Alex hit the nail on the head. There’s no way we can put nine bombs on a plane.’

‘But we need to hear that from the horse’s mouth, don’t we? It’s not our call to make.’

Gillard nodded. ‘I hear you, Mo. But I can hardly phone the PM and tell him to make up his mind, can I?’

‘The commissioner could.’

‘He could, but haven’t you noticed the deafening silence from his office? He knows that this is going to end badly, one way or the other, so he’s already distancing himself. The PM will make the decision. I’m organising the operation. The SAS are on site. No matter what happens, no one is going to be pointing the finger at our beloved commissioner.’

‘We need a decision, though,’ said Kamran. ‘And soon. I need to be able to tell Shahid something when he calls.’

Lynne Waterman waved at Chief Superintendent Gillard. ‘We’ve identified two more,’ she said.

‘Excellent,’ said Gillard. He pushed himself out of his chair and went over to the MI5 officer’s workstation. Kamran followed and they stood either side of her as they looked down at her screens.

On her left screen was a photo taken from the MP’s surgery in Camberwell. It showed a bearded Asian man in his late twenties, who appeared to be staring directly at the camera. Next to it was a passport photograph, though in that picture the man was clean-shaven. ‘Mohammed Ali Pasha,’ said Waterman. ‘Dad was a boxing fan, I kid you not. Twenty-six years old, London born, went to a comprehensive in Tower Hamlets, did a year at college studying computer science before he dropped out. He’s never been out of the country, never been remotely involved in jihadism so far as we can tell. Isn’t a regular at any mosque, doesn’t have any jihadist friends.’

‘So another cleanskin?’ said Kamran.

‘Yes, but he is known to the police. He was arrested two years ago after a long-running investigation into an underage sex ring in Tower Hamlets. A dozen or so Asian men were grooming underage white girls, getting them hooked on drugs and alcohol before having sex with them.’

‘So why isn’t Mr Pasha inside?’

‘That’s a very good question,’ said the MI5 officer. ‘And one that the Sunday Times investigation team was asking a year or so ago.’

‘I remember this,’ said Kamran. ‘Didn’t they accuse the CPS of having a mole or something?’

‘Or something,’ Waterman said. ‘The journalists didn’t come up with a name but they alleged that all the evidence pointed to someone within the CPS tipping the gang off. The initial investigation involved three girls, but as soon as the CPS was given the file one of the girls vanished and the other two had a sudden change of heart, which may or may not have had something to do with the fact that one family had an arson attack on their home and the other found their pet cat gutted outside their front door. The detectives kept on the case and came up with two more girls, one of whom had contracted HIV. The files went to the CPS and, again, the families of the girls were threatened. Actually, worse than threatened. Someone threw bleach into the face of the mother of one of the girls, almost blinding her. Again they refused to give evidence.’

‘It does seem pretty conclusive that someone within the CPS was passing information to the gang,’ said Kamran.

‘No argument there,’ said Waterman. ‘But it all got very racially charged, as you can imagine. There are a fair number of CPS staffers who are of Pakistani heritage and all sorts of allegations got thrown about. Several lawyers started alleging racism and the Met had to back off. A few of the CPS people took the paper to the Press Council but they found in favour of the journalists. At the end of the day the investigation was allowed to wither on the vine, as it were.’

‘So the big question is, how does a child molester end up holding an MP hostage with a waistcoat full of explosives?’ said Gillard.

‘And you might very well ask the same question of Mohammed Tariq Masood, the man in the restaurant in Southwark,’ said Waterman, turning her attention to the centre screen on her desk. There were another two photographs there. One was a CCTV shot of a bearded Asian man walking along the pavement, the other a police mugshot. ‘He’s another cleanskin. No terrorist involvement, isn’t a regular at a mosque and actually applied to join the army when he was eighteen. He was turned down on medical grounds. He had a detached retina, which was fixed when he was twelve but that’s a barrier to joining the forces. He got a job in the family business, importing rugs and textiles, and was a model citizen until last year. He was in a car with three Asian friends and they got into an argument with a couple of Romanian women in west London. The women were gypsies selling the Big Issue, words were exchanged and the four guys beat the women senseless. They were arrested and charged and they’re due in court next month. The case has taken time because after they left hospital the women went back to Romania. But they’ve been interviewed and will come back to give evidence.’

‘So yet again no terrorist involvement. But known to the police.’ Gillard rubbed the back of his neck ‘What the hell is going on here?’

‘They’re cleanskins, but they’re not innocents,’ said Kamran. ‘Is that what’s happening? Someone has recruited them because they’re not on MI5’s radar?’

‘It’s possible,’ said Waterman. ‘But how do you persuade someone with no history of fundamentalism to become a suicide bomber?’