Ultimatum

Five

08.18

The gunman was watching Sky News when the pretty young anchor interrupted the sports round-up to announce in serious tones that reports were coming in of an explosion near London’s Victoria Station. This was immediately followed by live footage from a helicopter of the view above the street in question showing a blazing shop front with people milling about outside, some of them clearly hurt, and several others lying on the ground. There were emergency services personnel on the scene but they appeared to be in short supply.

He switched off the TV. The job was done, but he took no great pleasure in it, even though the whole thing had been a huge risk and had required precision planning. The bomb had been powerful, and plenty of people were dead — cut down for no other reason than that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The outrage would be immense. Just as they wanted it.

Mika sat at one end of the sagging sofa, her head resting on one shoulder, a dark bloody hole in the centre of her forehead. She too was collateral damage, which was unfortunate. She’d done her job well, if under duress, but she knew too much to be allowed to live.

He took out the mobile he’d used to detonate Akhtar Mohammed’s bomb, and phoned the main switchboard at BBC Radio London. Clearly it was a bit early in the morning for them because it took a good minute before the call was answered by a male operator.

Speaking into the high-spec voice disguiser that made it impossible to detect either his age or ethnicity, he began his short prepared speech. ‘A soldier from Islamic Command just struck a blow against Crusader forces by detonating a bomb right in the heart of your corrupt capital city. The British Crusader government has until eight p.m. tonight to make a public statement promising to withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan and cease support for its American puppet government with immediate effect, or a far greater attack will take place somewhere in this country that will bring fire down on all your heads. Remember, the deadline is eight p.m. You have been warned.’

The operator started to speak but the gunman ended the call. He didn’t turn off the phone, though. Instead he wiped it down with a cloth and threw it on the sofa next to Mika’s corpse. He was pretty sure he hadn’t left any of his DNA inside the flat. On the two occasions he’d visited he’d always worn gloves and had tried to minimize his contact with any of the surfaces. To make doubly sure that the police had nothing to go on when they came to this place, though, he picked up a second backpack from behind the sofa and placed it in Mika’s lap. It too contained a bomb of similar destructive capacity to the one he’d given to Akhtar, but this one was on a timer, primed to explode at 10.35 a.m., which he’d estimated would be around the time the police arrived, having traced the location of the phone. A second bomb in the boot of a car nearby was primed to explode at the same time. Hopefully, between them the bombs would take out a few of the security forces; but even if they didn’t, it wouldn’t matter. The point of all terrorist campaigns is to sow fear and especially panic among the civilian population, and there was nothing more effective than apparently random attacks to do just that.

He took a last look round, one final check that he hadn’t left behind any telltale evidence, then put on a pair of glasses and a baseball cap, pulling it low over his face, and left the flat, keeping his head down against the cold February air, confident that even if he was picked up on the inevitable CCTV cameras round here, no one would recognize him.