Siege

Thirty-eight

18.29

THE INTERIOR OF the mobile incident room was long, narrow and windowless, like the inside of a shipping container. A bank of TV screens – some blank, others showing rolling news footage of the Stanhope Hotel – lined one side, beneath which were a half dozen work stations.

There were three other people in the room when Arley and Riz Mohammed walked in. Will Verran and Janine Sabbagh were both police technicians whom Arley had only just met. Janine was a petite blonde-haired South African in her mid thirties with very dark eyes and a friendly smile, while Will was a tall, lanky twenty-something with a boyish face and sandy hair that was thinning fast. Their responsibility was to keep open the channels of communication between Arley and all the other people and agencies involved in the operation.

The third person was John Cheney. He’d removed his jacket and was down to his shirtsleeves as he stood talking on one of the phones. He gave them a nod as they walked in, sizing up Riz with watchful eyes. So far, Cheney and Arley hadn’t had much to do with each other, which suited her just fine. Even after all these years, she didn’t feel entirely comfortable around him, although she wasn’t exactly sure why.

Arley saw the surprised look cross Riz’s face when he saw the three of them. It was clear he thought there’d be more people inside the police’s forward control room.

‘We’ve got officers in the incident room next door but most of our non-frontline resources are remaining off-site,’ she explained as she introduced him to the others. ‘Mainly because it’s so difficult to get down here with the traffic, and’ – she swept an arm round – ‘obviously there’s not a great deal of room. But we’re in touch with everyone we need to be, and we have video conferencing facilities set up. Right, Janine?’

‘We’ve got a video link to the Scotland Yard control room, which means they’ll be able to see and hear us in here,’ said Janine, pressing a couple of buttons on her keyboard. ‘And we’re just establishing one to the chief commissioner’s office so he can listen in on the call.’

Arley turned to Riz. She’d already briefed him on her call with Commissioner Phillips, and knew that time was short. ‘Don’t forget, you’ve got to insist on speaking to Prior. The codewords he’ll use are written down there. Anything else you need before you make the call?’

‘The most important thing for me is to know who I’m dealing with,’ said Riz, addressing the room. ‘If we can ID any of the hostage-takers, particularly those in charge, it’ll be a huge help.’

‘We’ve got MI5 and CTC checking the voice records from the calls to see if they match any known suspects,’ said Arley, ‘and GCHQ are listening in on all the mobile phone conversations taking place inside the building. Any new developments we should know about?’ she asked Cheney.

‘We haven’t had any matches yet,’ he answered in that deep, gruff voice of his. ‘GCHQ also haven’t been able to pick up any mobile phone conversations between the terrorists in the building, which suggests they’re not communicating by phone. They’re also checking for use of short-wave radios and the internet, but apart from the uploading of the earlier video showing the Director, there’s been nothing.’

‘And the people calling out from the hotel. What are they saying about the hostage-takers? Are they speaking English? If so, with local or foreign accents?’

‘The leader’s speaking with an Arab accent,’ said Cheney, ‘and we’ve got phonetics experts trying to place it to a specific locality, but they haven’t come back to us yet. As to the rest of the hostage-takers, we’ve had surprisingly few reports, although we believe they’re a mixture of Middle Eastern and eastern European accents.’

‘OK,’ said Will Verran, interrupting proceedings, ‘we’ve got live feed to the commissioner’s office.’

One of the blank screens lit up, showing Derek Phillips sitting at his desk, watching them. ‘Are we ready to make the call?’ he asked the assembled room, checking his watch. ‘We’re only two minutes off the hostage-taker’s deadline.’

‘We’re ready now, sir,’ Arley answered, feeling a rush of excitement, before turning to Riz. ‘It’s all yours.’ She pointed at a handset on the desk in front of him. ‘That’s the phone to use. It’s a secure landline. Press one and it’ll get you straight through to the phone the terrorist leader made his original call from.’

‘Remember,’ said Phillips, ‘we have to insist on speaking to Michael Prior.’

‘I’ll do everything I can.’

Riz squeezed his bulk into the seat, picked up the phone and held it in his hand for a few moments, looking pensive but calm. Everyone in the room was watching him. Arley knew he was under a lot of pressure, but then they all were. She recalled his performance in Brixton and was confident she’d made the right decision in picking him for this, probably the biggest job of his life.

Finally, he pressed 1 and put the phone to his ear.