First Response

SOUTH LONDON (ten hours earlier)

Kashif Talpur kept his breathing slow and even. The hood had been over his head when he woke, and he quickly realised that the faster he breathed, the more uncomfortable it was. He had stuck out his tongue and pressed it against the hood and it felt soft and rough. Sacking maybe. He was sitting on something hard and his hands were tied behind him.

He had no idea how long he’d been tied to the chair, or what time it was. The last thing he remembered was walking back to his flat. He’d seen a man waiting on the pavement ahead of him. Something about him had seemed off so Talpur’s defences had been up. But he was so busy concentrating on the man ahead of him that he never even heard the one behind him. Something sweet had been clamped over his mouth and, within seconds, he had lost consciousness. Talpur had no idea how long ago that had happened. It could have been an hour, it could have been a day.

He listened intently. He could hear scraping sounds, and a soft footfall. An occasional grunt. After a while he lost all sense of time. The ripping off of the hood came as a shock, intensified by the fluorescent lights overhead that stung his eyes. He blinked away tears as he tried to focus. There was something on his head, covering his face, though there were holes for his eyes and mouth. A ski mask, he realised. He was wearing a ski mask.

There were men in front of him, wearing ski masks and tied to chairs. He looked to his left. More masked men. He twisted his head to the right. More men. They were sitting in a circle, facing inwards. All men, so far as he could see. All masked. All tied. He blinked faster, trying to clear his vision. Then he saw something that made him catch his breath. The man directly opposite him had a canvas vest under his coat. The vest had pockets containing what looked like greyish blocks of Plasticine and, running from pocket to pocket, there were wires, some red, some blue. Talpur knew that he was looking at a suicide vest. He blinked and glanced at the man to his left. He was wearing an identical vest. So was the man next to him. They were all wearing suicide vests. He looked down at his own chest and gasped when he saw the grey blocks and wires tucked into the canvas vest. He began to struggle but the bonds held him tight and all he could do was rock the chair from side to side.