1/1:JIHAD:BRITAIN
BY
JACK EVERETT & DAVID COLES
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Acknowledgements The Authors would like to acknowledge the help and support of their families during the writing of this novel.
And especial thanks to Carole Griffiths for her editing skills in preparing this manuscript
This precious stone set in the silver sea...
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
William Shakespeare
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil
is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke
PROLOGUE
New Years Eve; 2012 was just hours away.
Somehow, twelve years into the new century, the mood of the world was optimistic. The USA had softened its stance in the Middle East; Europe was actually backing up its rhetoric with actions.
On that night in Scotland, Celtic and Rangers did the unthinkable. Ibrox Stadium played host to an evening of singing and fireworks for a mixed audience of eighty thousand fans from both clubs.
In London a thanksgiving service was to take place over the midnight hour at St. Paul’s Cathedral which was still covered in a basketwork of scaffolding after its three hundredth anniversary restoration had been delayed. On the advice of MI5, neither the Queen nor the Duke of Edinburgh attended the service, the Prince of Wales and his family were guests of the United Arab Emirates. A huge contingent of members of parliament for the government had been press-ganged into attending, along with a sprinkling of ministers – all of whom showed signs of severe arm twisting.
A similar event was in progress in London’s Trafalgar Square with the fountains full of hardy souls braving the three degree centigrade temperature. Police ignored the bathers in favour of filling their vans with drug abusers and muggers.
At the same time, in the Millennium stadium at Cardiff, the Welsh National Choir entertained 74,000 people both seated and shoulder to shoulder on the turf surrounding the central stage. Here Bryn Hughes – Wales’ current gift to the international operatic scene – was due to open the celebrations at midnight.
At Southampton the vast new Atlantic class cruise ship Majesty was making its way up the Solent to enter Southampton Water to berth at the cruise terminal; with a length of nearly half a kilometre and massing 170,000 tonnes, its progress was necessarily ‘slow ahead’. A large crowd was waiting at Mayflower Park to welcome it for its five day layover.
***
The ‘incidents’ as the Prime Minister was to refer to them later, were not exactly synchronised.
At eleven forty five on that Thursday night, Majesty was moving towards its berth. It was not possible of course but a number of those who survived swore the ship leaped from the water. Others likened it to an earthquake, that sort of swaying sensation just before the main shock arrives.
To the almost 5,000 passengers on board, it was surreal, like nothing they had experienced before; horrific explosions were followed by the decks shuddering and tilting and they continued to tilt. In less than sixty seconds, the liner had listed so far to starboard that it was only possible to walk along the corridors with one foot on the starboard wall.
Captain David Arbuckle and his second officer were in the main restaurant, where passengers at the Captain’s table were celebrating; their partying masked the sound of the explosions. When the truth dawned on them – that the vessel was sinking – they, along with the stewards, the wine waiters, and sundry other crew, immediately began ushering the passengers uphill to the port side corridors that ran the length of the vessel. The huge grand piano slid and crashed to a standstill with a clash of discordant notes at the end of its heavy-weather chain. It brought everyone to a standstill for a second before they began to struggle up the increasingly rumpled floor carpet.
As the huge dead weight shuddered and settled on its side, a proportion of the would-be diners made it to the relative safety of the enclosed corridors of the observation deck, none of the officers or on-duty crew were among them. The almost subliminal sound of the engines had gone, lighting failed and a dull glow of emergency lights replaced it.
On the navigation deck, things were much worse. Red lights covered the control panels, communication with the engine hall was non-existent and high in the air, higher than a twenty storey building, the slope of the deck was even more evident, the inclination was getting rapidly steeper. Navigation officers pulled themselves up to the starboard end of the long curved enclosure and wrestled their way through the door that was now a hatchway. They moved aft, to the forward end of the observation decks, joining the passengers standing on the toughened glass of the long panoramic windows. Within twelve minutes, the Majesty was on its beam ends; less than forty feet was still visible above water. Acrid fumes were now adding to the scene of devastation.
A back-of-an-envelope estimate made by a local news reporter suggested that four thousand passengers and crew were drowned, there were few children among the survivors, few parents, few men or women over sixty.
The tragedy was watched by six thousand spectators struck dumb by the enormity of the disaster, on the Mayflower Park vantage point. The bombers thoughtfully gave those fifteen minutes to appreciate the full horror before detonating land mines hidden beneath the turf all across the area. In what was clearly a carefully calculated act of terror, another four thousand people lost their lives and most of the remainder were injured more or less severely.
***
11:53 pm
The explosions were curiously muffled – the result of carefully and professionally placed demolition charges. It seemed impossible that the destruction of the three hundred year old dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral should happen so quietly.
Inside the building, the actual disintegration was anything but silent. Blocks of stone crashed down on the congregation directly beneath, crushing bodies as indiscriminately as the chairs and benches. In fact, the din was great enough to cover the next wave of carefully engineered devastation which brought down the stonework and roof of the nave. The thirty foot west door was blown out like matchwood, fragments of furniture and body parts filled the gaping void. Smoke began to billow out of the ruined cupola and the shattered windows above the nave.
Sir Christopher Wren’s tomb in the south aisle was buried beneath tons of broken stone and roof timbers. His monument – the Cathedral itself – was no longer a thing of beauty or a refuge of peace. A quarter of an hour after midnight – a quarter hour into 2012 – the dust was settling; in the distance, the wail of fire appliances grew louder.
It was obvious that the blasts were being directed to wreak maximum effect. No sooner had the fire-fighters’ hoses been connected and dragged inside the Cathedral than another chain of explosions occurred. These were from charges set along the quire – the east end of the building where the Royal family would have been had they attended and where the two hundred or so MPs now huddled without possibility of escape. Also, the choir, the Bishop of London and attendant clerics as well as irreplaceable sculpture and artwork and the American Chapel behind the altar were lost to the future.
***
11:54 pm
Across Ludgate Hill, Francis Raike, MP- considered by all sides of the house as the brightest spark in government - was standing at the window of his newly acquired apartment. Hands in his pockets, he was staring reflectively at the small pediment just below the dome of St. Paul’s when the flashes from the blasts drew his gaze.
The fact that the windows were double glazed probably saved his life, the initial spray of stone fragments and broken timbers cracked the outer toughened glass pane but did not get through. It gave him a moment to instinctively drop to the floor before the heavier pieces arrived and shattered the whole window. Broken stone, parts of statues, centuries old timber, equally ancient wrought iron ties spun across the intervening space and showered his lounge. A piece of debris hit the window frame and ricocheted downwards, striking the side of Raike’s head, the world went dark and silent.
***
11:55 pm
The Ibrox underground station is close to the stadium; only seconds away. The platform was thronged with the first celebrants out of the stadium; the steps down from the entrance were so overcrowded that it was impossible to move; impossible too, to fall over in the tightly packed mass of bodies.
Just before the hour, the roof blew in; the entrance way collapsed and fallen masonry blocked any means of entry or exit. The train just arriving at the platform was the second of the specials that had been organised to move the crowds out; the first was travelling slowly just a hundred yards ahead and the third was a similar distance from the platform. The second series of explosions smashed the departing train against the side of the tunnel leading from the platform and brought down a long section of roof. The cars alongside the platform were lifted off the rails and hurled among the waiting passengers. A blast back along the approach rail wrecked the empty train and effectively sealed the station as fires took hold and smoke funnelled up the stairs into the entrance hall…
***
12:03pm
Oddly enough, Nelson’s column just wouldn’t fall down. Edwin Landseer’s Lions disintegrated, their component parts flying across Trafalgar Square decapitating three people. Many were peppered with fragments of bronze; hundreds were so badly lacerated that they would not survive, others lost eyes, ears, limbs and suffered severe internal injuries.
Ambulances arrived within minutes and those first to arrive vainly called for more but the service was already overstretched by the atrocity at St. Paul’s.
The few ambulance crews, paramedics, police, walking wounded public, did their best for the maimed but it was a piecemeal effort, an uncoordinated and demoralised response. The number of dead and injured would not be known until daylight, not until they had picked the bodies and limbs out of the fountains and those that had crawled behind seats to die in what they had hoped would be safety.
But Nelson’s granite column stayed just where it was and the Admiral took not the slightest notice of the carnage at all.
***
12:12am
Like the Ibrox Stadium, Cardiff’s Millennium was a modern building designed to withstand far worse disasters than anyone could ever imagine. Unlike those at Ibrox, the bombers did not consider this; they went ahead anyway.
The two corner towers nearest the water were mined. When the charges went off at almost the same moment as the Ibrox bombs, the steel work sagged a little and bent but held. No one was killed or injured except for Bryn Hughes who suffered a non-fatal heart attack
CHAPTER ONE
2006 AD
The summer of 2006 and people cowered in the ruins of their towns and villages while the Israeli planes screamed over Southern Lebanon. The bombs were targeted on the power plant in Zahrani on July 15th and only one bomb actually hit the western suburbs; most of the smaller munitions were scattered across the farms and holdings to the east, where it was thought that Hezbollah military were using the fruit orchards for cover.
From his vantage point in the hills above Zarit, Fahkri watched the F-161’s as they first screamed overhead forcing him to clap hands to ears and his charges - a mixed flock of goats and sheep - to leap and jump around in total disarray. He saw the Hezbollah running and hiding in the fields and saw the jets return much more slowly. He watched open-mouthed as one F-161 dropped its load, a single CBU-58 which split in half releasing six hundred and fifty bomblets onto the fields and town below.
Hundreds of explosions ripped trees and houses to shreds, thousands of titanium pellets tore through masonry as easily as flesh, snuffing out life everywhere, all in an instant.
When the raid was over Fahkri went home, or to the place where his home had been. It was difficult to tell which was Fahkri’s home and which was the chemist’s shop next door. The place where his family had been living only minutes before was now a low mound of rubble. Somewhere beneath the stones and broken concrete were his parents, his two brothers and his sister.
He and his neighbours tore at the ruins for the rest of the afternoon. At about five o’clock they found the lifeless body of Latif, his elder brother and shortly afterwards that of his sister.
Lamps were brought as darkness gathered and the work went on, more men came to help and the work progressed a little faster even as the sun set. At midnight, Fahkri’s mother was found beneath a concrete beam, it had crushed her chest and she was quite dead. Mukhtar was right by his wife holding her hand; he also was crushed, unconscious but still breathing. He died before reaching hospital. The body of his younger brother, Kazim, was never found.
The next day, Fahkri left Zahrani to walk to Sidon. Without food or water, he might have died. Sleeping by the roadside, he should have died of hypothermia.
But Fahkri didn’t die. Sprawled across a broken water pipe and soaking up the trickle of water left with his shirt, he sat up when a ramshackle Mercedes stopped.
‘Where’re you going, boy?’ asked the driver.
Fahkri looked up, shrugged. ‘Sidon?’
‘Get in.’
Fahkri got in.
‘Hassan.’ Said the driver and shook hands before leaning across the boy and pulling the door shut. ‘Been out in the country because I thought it was safer than the city but I can’t work out there, and what’s happening to my shop in Sidon, Hey?’
Fahkri shrugged event wearied shoulders.
‘But you? Why’re you going there?’
And all at once, Fahkri knew why he was going. ‘I’m going to learn how to kill Israelis.’
‘Hm. I don’t know anything about that myself but I know someone who does, hang on.’
As they drove Fahkri told him all about his family, about the bombs falling every day on Zahrani and how the town was just streets of mounded wreckage, how there was no electricity, no water. He told Hassan about his relatives who had been taken to hospital only to have two bombs flatten the whole building, how two friends of Fahkri’s had tried to clear an unexploded cluster bomb from their kitchen window, they lost a leg and a life between them and Fahkri didn’t know which of them was the more fortunate. He finished up with the story of his own family and licked his lips because his mouth was too dry to talk any more.
‘There’s some coke on the back seat,’ Hassan told him. ‘It’s warm but it’s wet.’
A little while later, Hassan asked him how old he was.
‘Sixteen.’
‘It is not too old to be orphaned.’
They went along downhill roads until they were next to the sea and ten minutes later he parked outside a small supermarket, closed up and intact apart from a crack across one of the windows.
Next door was a café. ‘Come on.’ He said and heaved himself out of the Merc. He was quite a plump man, Fahkri noticed, there was a bald patch on the crown of his head beaded with sweat and the back of his shirt was soaking. Hassan went to the café and sat down at a table. There were two empty beer bottles next to three empty coffee cups on the table. There was a pack of cigarettes, its contents scattered across the surface between the two men who just sat there watching Hassan settle down.
‘This is Fahkri.’ He said and leaned towards another table to drag a chair across. ‘Sit down, Fahkri.’
Fahkri did as he was told and watched the low swell crossing the harbour and slapping against the quay. Boats lined the dock; nets were piled in unused heaps, hopelessly tangled. The fisherman threw dynamite from the shore to stun the fish so they could gather them in without having to defy the Israeli blockade.
Hassan put his hand up. ‘Bring me a coffee,’ he shouted to the café owner, ‘and a Coke for the boy.’
‘Have you seen Shadid?’ Hassan asked, low voiced.
One of the men picked up a cigarette from the table and lit it from the stub of the one between his lips. ‘You need to see him?’
‘Of course, why do you think I ask?’
‘Where are you sleeping tonight?’
Hassan nodded to his shop. ‘In the back, my house has fallen down.’
Shadid knocked on the shop window about ten o’clock. Hassan was watching the news on a small TV, on al-Manar, the Hezbollah television channel. He turned the sound down before going to check who his visitor was before opening the door.
He introduced Shadid to Fahkri. ‘Fahkri has learned to hate Israelis,’ he said.
The man from Hezbollah smiled. ‘Welcome.’
***
Shadid came back in the morning. Hassan bought him breakfast at the next door café where he and Fahkri had just finished eating. Fahkri went up the coast with Shadid to Beirut where he disappeared into the workings of a Hezbollah training camp for four weeks.
Religious instruction figured heavily in his training. A mullah talked to them about earning their entrance to a paradise filled with voluptuous virgin nymphs and milk and honey streams running under fruit-laden trees. Then they spent days while foreign-looking men taught them the rudiments of killing their enemies: how to look inconspicuous in vests filled with fake bombs and to pass for ordinary young men until they pressed their detonators. Finally, there was the video in which each of the would-be bombers spoke brave words for their family and contemptuous ones for the Israelis. The mullah gave each of them his blessing and a cheap dagger in a gaudy scabbard.
After more training – at first in Qalandinya refugee camp in Palestine then in Syria – Fahkri and two others were taken into Israel through a claustrophobic tunnel. An event that Fahkri never wished to repeat, four hours of crawling through an upgraded sewer pipe on one’s belly was, he thought, only fit for snakes. It had once been used for smuggling but was now a pipeline pouring terrorism into Israel. The Israelis found them and filled them in but they dug more. From the border, they were driven south to Tel-Aviv.
In Israel, the three boys were each given a vest with ten kilograms of explosive sewn into pockets. They wore anoraks over the top with a wire taken through to a dead-man’s switch in the pocket.
The three suicide bombers never saw one another again. Fahkri was taken to a popular cinema in the suburbs, pictures outside the entrance showed women in various stages of undress. His handler, Imran Asseil, was an activist only a year or so older than Fahkri; he gave the boy enough money to buy a ticket and waited outside in case the martyr should have second thoughts.
The hero of the film was busy in a shower when Fahkri sat down somewhere near the middle of the auditorium. In a few moments, his eyes would have accustomed themselves to the darkness and he would be able to see how full the place was. Back on the screen, the man in the shower was joined by an equally naked woman, and the camera lovingly explored the streams of water running down her breasts.
The Muslim boy had never before seen an unclothed woman and was transfixed for several minutes by the sight. Certain thoughts came to him: he had been told that in Paradise, he would have his pick of wanton houris eager to fill his every wish but here and now, he could see and enjoy what would be his hereafter. There was really no reason to enter Paradise today.
As Fahkri worked out the answer, the couple on the screen began to make love. He had no near neighbours at the moment and took the opportunity to remove the five separate cylinders of explosive from his vest and to pull the detonator switch out of his anorak. He placed the explosives under the seat and holding the pressure switch closed, he pressed the priming switch. Carefully, he placed the scabbarded dagger over the switch so that its weight would keep it closed.
He stood up and walked back to the aisle then went to stand at the rear of the hall, to watch the seat he had just left. Several young men came in and walked down the aisle, their gaze on the screen where the actors were now making frenzied love on a rug.
Blindly, they sidestepped along the seats and Fahkri nodded to himself, he backed through the door just as the woman on the screen squealed in ecstasy and one of the men kicked the dagger away from the switch.
‘God is great.’ He said to himself as the explosion ripped through the theatre, smashing the seats to shreds and matchwood, cracking the old concrete roof so badly that it fell inwards in four huge blocks. Fahkri still had his hand on the door handle as the blast blew the door off its hinges and tore it from his grasp, smashing into the boy before cart wheeling along the corridor into another group of latecomers.
Fahkri picked himself up and pressed the right hand under his left armpit. He saw an emergency exit light shining through the dust clouds and limped across; blood was running down his side. He let himself out and looked carefully around; there was a market opposite the exit door. Everyone’s eyes were turned to the smoke and dust erupting from the cinema, Fahkri crossed the street and lost himself in the market.
Imran Asseil saw the dust burst through the open doors of the foyer and smiled his delight at the numbers of Israelis who had gone to their God that night. He turned to go, crossing the street towards the market just ahead of Fahkri.
It was almost destiny that made him look round, his satisfied smile turning to incredulity to see the boy behind him. Again, perhaps it was fate that made him walk backwards into a pile of boxes. Alternately cursing and apologising to the stall holder, Imran picked himself up and began searching for the illusive Fahkri. There was only one way he could have gone and Imran dashed down the narrow passage between the stalls. Luck more than competence brought him face to face with his quarry, huddled in a corner among tethered goats and donkeys and rotting vegetables, he had torn part of his vest off and was wrapping it around his injured hand, trying to staunch the steady flow of blood...
‘What happened?’
Fahkri shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ which was almost true by now. ‘I released the switch, the bombs went off and somehow, I was blown out through the doors.’ He shrugged. ‘When I saw that I was not in heaven, I… I suppose I ran away. What else was there to do?’
‘Do?’ For a moment, Imran was lost for words. ‘Do? This is a miracle, a miracle. Allah, may His name be praised, has seen fit to spare you for greater things. He has chosen you. Come.’
‘Where to?’ Asked an astonished Fahkri.
‘To find somewhere to stay while the police look for you.’
They laid low for a day in a small house close to the Hassan Bek mosque and, as it happened, within a few doors of a police station that someone had decorated with blue paint and caricatures. An old woman cleaned up Fahkri’s damaged hand and cut up some cloth to bandage it with.
The following day they walked a few streets to the north and caught a bus at the central bus station that took them close to the Syrian border. Although Fahkri hadn’t been told where he was, in case he was caught and made to divulge the information, this was where he had trained for his suicide mission. Returning there, he was sent to the medical room and debriefed as his hand was cleaned and a doctor came to look at the cuts.
The doctor looked at the boy’s hand far longer than seemed necessary to Fahkri. At last he looked up and asked: ‘Who was your supporter in Israel?’
‘Imran,’ he said.
‘Imran Asseil?’
Fahkri nodded.
The doctor pushed his spectacles back up to the bridge of his nose. ‘Go bring Imran Asseil here.’ He said to the assistant.
‘You were saying something about a miracle, when you came back. Correct?’ He asked when Imran came into the room.
‘Yes…’
‘Did you see this?’ He turned Fahkri’s right hand palm up.
‘What?’ Imran frowned. ‘God.’ He said
‘Exactly.’
Cut deeply across Fahkri’s hand was a familiar pattern: ???. It spelled the Islamic word ‘God.’
CHAPTER TWO
2008 AD
Fahkri Abbas was almost nineteen and no longer a virgin when he finished his studies at the University of Riadh. He had travelled to Pakistan and then into the Hindu Kush, the mountainous border country between Pakistan and Afghanistan, to meet with counsellors and political analysts supported by the Al-Qaeda organisation. Fahkri had had a long time to absorb his teaching, to consolidate his hate of the west and to write and re-write his proposal – a sort of Islamic PhD thesis on bringing terror to the continent of Europe.
It had been sent to the terrorist organisation to show how the money provided for Fahkri’s education had been used. The young man, quite obviously, had a natural talent for dreaming up such schemes and assessing the necessary resources. He had even learned to smile though on close inspection one could see the light had gone out in his eyes.
***
Fahkri, together with his supervisor, as Imran Asseil had now been appointed, were interviewed at length. Some of his proposals were dismissed as unworkable or as counter-productive: blowing up the Orient Express or using hot air balloons at night to drop bombs on the capitals of anti-Islamic countries; others – some eight or ten – were debated in more and more detail until five initiatives were selected.
It appeared to Imran that Fahkri had grown up since their last meeting, there was an air about him. Was it self-assurance or had he grown cocky? He wondered. While the boy had been away learning the art of killing people he, Imran, had also been training. Memory exercises had taught him how to remember names, dates and places. He became so good that he could have remembered a hundred or so telephone numbers although these, he was taught, should be written down on soluble breath fresheners with a CD marker pen – easy to dispose of in an emergency, just pop them in one’s mouth. Fahkri however would need showing who was in charge. He returned to reading his report awaiting his chance.
‘Should we not be training people like me? Explosive experts for example?’ Asked Fahkri
‘No, Fahkri, it is not necessary to train these people, we have them already. In Britain, there are at least three groups of explosive experts. How? You ask, hm? They are people we have who blow things up, that’s all you need to know, they are demolitions experts who blow up buildings and get paid for it. They will come to me when I ask.’
‘But how and where do you hide them?’
Imran leaned back in his chair and laughed. ‘Ah Fahkri you have much to learn.’
Fahkri scowled on Imran’s blind side, he did not like being patronised.
‘How do you hide an explosives expert? You put him to work!’ Imran tapped the next page in his report. ‘Ship building workers. We thought the target should be the biggest, most hedonistic cruise liner we could find, right? I give you a ship that was started in March this year, in Finland, where there is a sizeable community of Iranians and Iraqis.’
‘In Finland?’ Fahkri was incredulous. ‘But it’s cold, there; on the edge of the Arctic Circle.’
‘Nevertheless.’
Fahkri was given a Turkish passport and a Dutch one; he flew into Frankfurt from Ankara. At the airport, he gave an address where it was known that an immigrant Turkish family lived and spoke rapid Arabic to the customs official until they let him through. A train took him through the Netherlands to Denmark where he bought a ticket to Helsinki on one of the ferries. Denmark was cool. Finland was cold. Fahkri shivered. It was summer but as far as he was concerned it was cold and his fingers shook as he counted out the 26 Euros for the ticket to Turku.
The letter from an Imam at the University of Riadh procured him a job at the Islamic Centre as a caretaker at the school there; the job included the use of a small flat. This meant that the present incumbent was suddenly unemployed and also suddenly without a home; Fahkri shrugged at the news; his own crusade was the only important thing. The Centre also arranged for him to meet four Iraqi welders who worked at the Aker ship yards in Turku. They were helping to build the world’s largest cruise liner, ‘Majesty.’
***
Imran’s journey was similar though he travelled the following month and by a different route, via Britain before going on to Helsinki.
He flew into Stanstead and arranged an onward flight to Helsinki before getting a taxi to Cambridge. After an early lunch, Imran took a second taxi to Baxendale Road and walked to the offices of Baxendale Civil Engineering and Asbestos Removal.
‘Mr. Hajir, please, Mr. Aram Hajir.’ He said in slow English to the receptionist.
‘Is he expecting you, Sir?’
‘I believe that he is. My name is Asseil.’ He spelt it out feeling proud of his command of the English alphabet.
The small blonde girl tapped three keys on her keyboard, spoke into her Bluetooth mouthpiece. She looked up and smiled at Imran. ‘Mr. Hajir will be right with you, Sir.’
And he was. A tall thin, rather nervous man whom Imran immediately pegged as an Iranian.
‘Mr. Asseil, how nice to meet with you. Please come through.’ Hajir held open the door at the rear of the reception office until Imran had walked through; he indicated another open door further along the passage.
In Hajir’s office, they exchanged greetings and kisses and both sat in not very comfortable easy chairs.
Hajir wore a small moustache, this and his hair was shot through with white. ‘I received notice of your coming.’ He said in Iranian. ‘What is it I can do for you?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Imran said in English.
Hajir nodded, repeated himself in English.
‘Ah!’ Imran explained his needs.
‘But yes, we order this sort of thing very often but from Finland?’
‘We actually need the product in Finland so, in fact, your order will contain only enough explosive to satisfy any inspections. The real goods that we need are nothing more than a valid order from a bona fide user and an end-user certificate.’
Hajir thought about it for a few moments and nodded to himself. ‘I see. Yes indeed, I can do this. There is no problem – except money.’
‘Which I can provide. Let me explain our intentions and you can advise me as to quantities and costs.’
They discussed Imran’s plans and Hajir spent some time on paper and pencil calculations. Imran then thought it time to tell Hajir his plans.
‘We have a project planned for the future which we would like you to take part in.’
‘Can you tell me more?’
‘All I can tell you at this time is it will involve blowing things up and you will have to close your business – for which you will be compensated of course, even though our organisation gave you the money to start your business in the first place.’
Hajir nodded but his eyes were looking every which way and he gave off a strong feeling of nervousness. ‘Well, I knew that it would come to this, sooner or later.’
‘Later, I think. I’m told you came to England in 1991. This will not take place for another year or thereabouts, so you should be able to use the time to arrange a new future. Have you a family?’
Hajir nodded.
‘Boys?’
Again he nodded, a little grimly.
‘I shall need your advice on demolition matters later. Maybe this year, perhaps next.’
Hajir showed his guest out, their parting words were strained.
***
Imran flew out as he had arranged and arrived in Turku in Finland early the following morning. He went at once to the Islamic Centre and was taken to see Fahkri.
‘So, Fahkri, do things continue well?’
‘So long as we get the plastic before we have to weld keel sections shut.’ Fahkri had changed in the months since Imran had seen him last. The younger man was more self-assured, he had assumed a façade of leadership that Imran could not be certain about; was it a sham or for real?
‘That is to be taken care of. There are two deliveries to be shipped to a company in England…’
‘England?’ asked Fahkri, startled out of his self-confidence.
Imran smiled as the veneer slipped for an instant: behind the mask still lurked the boy. ‘When is the keel to be laid?’
‘In September.’
‘So we have almost two months to secure our first delivery and then there will be a second transfer in October for the box section frames.’
‘But you said England.’
‘Only about ten percent will be shipped; enough to convince anyone that it is the real thing. The rest will be petroleum wax or something like that, but it will have permission for export, end-user certification, everything is genuine except the explosive. In England, the plastic will supposedly be stockpiled for use. In Finland, we shall have high grade explosive to use however we want.
CHAPTER THREE
2009 AD
The keel was laid at the yards on time with much flashing of news cameras and shaking of hands and congratulations.
Crowded into Fahkri’s small flat, with Imran and Fahkri, were the Iraqi welders. They were explaining to the ship-yard workmen how to place the explosives.
‘Each pack is self-contained,’ said Fahkri. ‘C4, batteries and two detonators in a sealed metal container. See here,’ he showed them a mock up of a pack, ‘the arming button is here, under this bump, nothing is exposed. You press the bump.’ It depressed with a click. ‘You fit two of them into each space and fill the remainder with polyurethane foam or whatever… Kamran? You have a question?’
‘Hm. Polyurethane is going to burn when we seal the section up.’
‘Hm, yes I suppose so. Is the section left as an empty space then?’
‘Well, sort of. It’s brushed out with a thick waterproof coating, electrolytic I think, but I don’t know, it’s not flammable.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Fahkri shook his head. ‘Just stick it down with duct tape, get the plate on and weld it shut.'
‘Does the plastic have a use-by date?’ asked one of the welders.
Fahkri smiled and shook his head. ‘So long as it’s stored in dry conditions, its shelf life is indefinite.’ He looked at each of the four in turn. ‘Anything more?’
The construction workers shook their heads.
‘Excellent. I must now be about my community duties. I have to convince our people how good a thing it is to be tolerant of our Kaffir brothers.’
‘And sisters.’ Added one of them.
‘And their depraved women folk who don’t know the meaning of modesty and obedience.’ Fahkri always castigated non-Muslim women more than most of his Islamic comrades. It came from the guilty knowledge that his sexual experiences were wholly with non-Muslim women; a good Islamic girl would certainly denounce him had he made such a proposition.
Fahkri held his hand up, palm outwards. Displaying his God-given sign had become a habit, a habit that bred deference and more than a little fear in those who knew what the scar resembled.
On the day that the ‘Majesty’ was launched for fitting out ready for her role as the largest luxury liner ever built, Imran had already left for Northern Ireland. He was buying more explosive from the now-defunct IRA for the demolition teams and negotiating a second deal with a member of the Real IRA as a middleman for arms from a Bosnian Serb contact.
One such team resided in Bradford, a three bedroomed house in Athol Road in the Manningham area. The four engineers who lived there now waited for Fahkri and Imran to join them. In the event, it was over a month before Imran arrived due to delivery problems. The arms, mainly Kalashnikovs, leftovers from the Bosnian Serb and Yugoslav armed forces, had to be brought to England, the Real IRA wanted delivery to take place in the Irish Republic but Imran would not pay unless they agreed to an arms drop in England, preferably within a few hours’ travel of Bradford.
Miles were converted to money. Each Kalashnikov rifle, originally priced at a little more than £300 became twenty five percent more expensive but they would be brought to Britain, to Conway in Wales, in fact. Conway possessed a modern marina and small boats were in and out of the harbour and the beaches all day during the summer months; three more arriving and leaving would not be remarked upon. Fahkri would drive a rented van; Imran would bring the money which had to be changed into Euros for the Irish.
The explosives were less of a problem. The IRA was eager to get rid of what was left of the ten tons of Semtex they had bought from Libya. It was all right decommissioning guns but explosive was more problematic; however if it could be sold, that was icing on the cake. Moving the stuff into England was only a minor problem – one that money readily solved; they had been doing it for years; it arrived in Cambridge and replaced the drums of fake plastic explosive that had been delivered from Finland.
So Fahkri lived with the demolition team in Bradford and kept their hearts pure, their brains washed and became a part of the local Muslim community. He joined a local mosque and got a job in the office there. The fact that he would spend his days counselling his fellow Muslims on the subject of integration and his evenings giving lectures on the Islamic takeover of the West was a source of great amusement. This in spite of the fact that his heart felt cold and compassion was no longer a part of him.
Once the deliveries from Northern Ireland were completed, Imran travelled once more to Cambridge with a copy of Fahkri’s project in his pocket.
***
Imran and Aram Hajir went first to Canterbury and strolled through the Cathedral there.
‘Six pounds each!’ Imran was amazed. ‘It cost us six pounds each just to come inside.’
‘Why should you worry, aren’t you going to blow this place up?’
‘Exactly,’ smiled Imran. ‘Not because they charged us, my colleague has planned all this meticulously.'
‘But it is ancient, feel the place, listen to it. It’s holy. Can you imagine blowing up the Masjed-e Jome’eh? Would you not die of shame?’
‘It’s filled with images of men. Look around you. Everywhere.’ Imran pointed to the figure of Christ, the effigies on the tomb stones, a statue of a night in armour, Becket’s face on a window. ‘And a woman.’
‘It is Christ’s Mother. She is above the Prophet’s daughter’
‘So? It is Kaffir. It does not matter.’
‘But the beauty…’
Imran cut him short. ‘I want to go up into the tower.’
They spent most of the afternoon in the Cathedral. Imran made copious notes and little maps. He came away very satisfied. ‘You see,’ he said making for a last-ditch attempt at getting Hajir to understand,’ this is England’s most divine temple. By destroying it, we make a very great statement, we bring sorrow and misery to the country and we punish them.’
‘But…’ But Hajir could not be convinced.
‘Listen to me Aram. Britain colluded in making Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Shah of your country and how many times have they intruded on Iranian waters, hm? They deserve everything we can do to them. You must harden your heart; there are many targets, this is merely one and I intend to show you most of them.’
***
In Southampton they looked at the cruise terminals and the viewing areas.
‘There,’ said Imran consulting his notes then gesturing to the wide open space of Mayflower Park in the distance. ‘I understand this will be heavily used at the time.’
‘And what do you plan for there.’
Imran went into details while Hajir shrugged his indifference.
‘Another white van situation, I’d say. We could work at night; put emergency signs up and lights. Maybe even warn the police so they won’t disturb us.’
Imran snorted. ‘Is this a joke, Aram? You can go and lay explosives wherever you want in England?’
‘You don’t understand the country, Mr. Asseil. There are many places where you could not do this sort of thing but a leisure park – with proper signage, town council notices. It is not a problem.’
CHAPTER FOUR
2010 AD
Imran returned to the house in Bradford in late spring. Like Fahkri he lived in two worlds. They spent small amounts of money strategically: helping a neighbour with a new washing machine, paying the bond on a local flat for a young man who had brought a wife back from Pakistan, redeeming a necklace from a pawnbroker for the wife of a feckless garbage man. Each time they gained a friend and they went to talks given by Fahkri; as their circle of friends grew larger, inside it, the circle of hate expanded.
Several of these men gathered at the house in Manningham two or three times a week. They discussed the state of the world, the war which was still being fought in Afghanistan and Britain’s relationship with the many Muslim countries. They deliberated over solutions, talked about the sermons that they heard at the mosque.
‘Remember what the Imam told us on the internet programme.’ Imran took a deep breath, closed his eyes and the words of Allah came straight into his mind. ‘Islam must enlist mujahideen to the cause. You must become those mujahideen, join us to bring Islam to the UK. Join us in Jihad against this decadent people and replace its decadent government with pure Islamic rulers.’
At the meeting one of the men asked Imran for advice regarding his niece who had committed adultery. Imran gave him the only advice he could. ‘You must obey the teachings of the Qur’an. You all know the punishment for such an act, it is written in Islamic law.’ Imran was referring to stoning by all the male members of her family.
***
Often the four man demolition firm was away for days at a time, leaving Fahkri and Imran alone. They invited a carefully selected few of their friends to the flat and played videoed messages and sermons supplied from various sources in the Middle East.
In June of 2011, Imran Asseil had reason to curse. He had just made arrangements to go with one of the Bradford team to Glasgow when he had word from Baxendale Civil Engineering. He was not sure he wanted to trust Fahkri with any job he felt came under his umbrella but there was no choice.
‘Fahkri, I have to go to Cambridge. I need you to go to Glasgow with Nadeem to look at the football stadium there; I forget what its name is but it will be in your project notes.’
‘Ibrox.’ He nodded. ‘Is there a problem in Cambridge?’
‘The owner of the company has gone, vanished. He was a weak one but I still thought he would hold out.’
Fahkri raised his eyebrows. ‘Does he know much of our plans; do you think he might go to the British authorities?’
Imran thought about it. ‘I don’t know. He’s been involved with us before now, I suppose he might risk it, but no – he only knows what I needed him to know.’ He turned his head away, concealing the consternation he suddenly felt and the lie he had just told.
‘What about our project?’
‘His general manager is still there and he may do a better job anyway.
***
Malik Abbas had spoken to his niece, hoping one last word from him – the head of the household – might put off the inevitable but it failed. The girl was headstrong, reared in the western way; she said she was in love and had been forced to marry a man twenty years older against her will. As had been the way for centuries, Malik gave the signal and all of the men present: her uncles, father and brothers picked up stones. Alina backed into a corner of the rear yard of the terraced house, not thinking for a moment that her family would go through with it.
Malik cast the first stone which struck Alina on the temple, concussing her while her brothers Rashid and Sabir held their stones with no wish to throw them. One disapproving look from Uncle Malik convinced them otherwise though both threw them without any real force.
When it was over the brothers stayed with their sister's body until the police came and they willingly owned up to their part in her demise.
The trial was short and – because they were pleading guilty – a tad more lenient. They were sentenced to six years each.
***
‘This place is new, it’s modern; it will stand up to a good sized earthquake.’ Fahkri and Nadeem had taken the train to Glasgow where they looked at the Ibrox Stadium together and Nadeem - a character unlike Fahkri had ever met before - laughed until his eyes watered. ‘Fahkri my friend, what is your intention here?’
‘To blow it up. When it’s full.’ Fahkri wondered how he could imbue others with his sense of purpose.
Fahkri grew annoyed; his master plan was being called into question. ‘Use more plastic then. Let us look at the place, at least.’
Nadeem shook his head. ‘Buy me some coffee while I think.’
Fahkri’s mood grew blacker by the minute. ‘Imran had no problems with the Cambridge people.’ He said as they waited at the counter in the new restaurant.
‘As I recall, the targets in England weren’t newly designed and built. Makes a diff…’ He stopped short as they arrived at the checkout. ‘What’s the station like when a match finishes?’ Nadeem asked the girl.
‘Station?’
‘The underground.’
‘Bloody awful. Abso-bloody-lutely awful. You’d be best tae walk up tae the next one.’
‘Thank you.’ Nadeem picked up the tray and left Fahkri to pay the girl.
‘He’s a polite one.’ She said to Fahkri who smiled his well-practised smile and followed his companion to a table.
‘Listen my friend we now have an alternative. The underground station, did you notice it as we came out?’
‘Not especially.’
Nadeem pulled out his notepad and began to draw. ‘It’s a disaster area; it’s just waiting for us to do something.’ He made sketch after sketch: outlines, stairs, platforms. ‘And along here, in the approach tunnels.’
Fahkri realised then that Nadeem was just as committed to the cause as he was despite his laughing manner. Fahkri picked up each sketch as it was finished and put it in his pocket. At the end, before they left, he looked under the table to make certain nothing had been dropped.
***
The house was like most of the rest in the street, unassuming, unremarkable. Imran knocked at the door.
‘Mr. Razi, I am pleased to meet you.’ Imran spoke as the man opened the door.
‘Mr. Asseil, please call me Tourak.’ The General Manager was a big man, tall, broad and well built. He wore a handmade suit and a silk tie.
‘Tourak.’ Imran smiled.
‘Well, where do I start? Mr. Hajir was absent from work last week. I rang his home to see if he was ill and left a message on his answering service.’ Tourak Razi lifted his hands and held them palm up. ‘I tried again the next day and then I went to his house. It was empty.’
‘Nothing there at all?’
‘Furniture. The doors were unlocked, I went in. Upstairs I found wardrobes had been emptied, clothes drawers – also empty.’
‘As you probably know, I had certain – political – arrangements with Mr. Hajir.’
‘Indeed he told me everything about your visit to Canterbury Cathedral and your intent. At the moment, I can see no reason why these arrangements cannot go ahead. I suggest we go through your plans and make certain we understand each other.’
Imran leaned back, at ease with Tourak. ‘I think that is an excellent idea, Tourak. Is this a secure place? I mean, from being overheard, that sort of thing?’
‘Suppose we go to lunch? I can book a private room where we can talk with confidence.’
Imran nodded. ‘Another good idea.’
Over lunch, Imran tested Tourak’s political and ideological credentials. He found the man open and at ease with his contempt for all things non-Islamic. They had acquaintances in common and they moved on to talk of Imran’s and Fahkri’s project in general terms.
‘I see that you have changed your prime target.’ Tourak observed. ‘Mr. Hajir’s notes mentioned Canterbury and now I see that St. Paul’s Cathedral in London has replaced it.’
Imran remembered his conversation with Fahkri before leaving him. This was the information that had concerned him and which he had lied about to Fahkri.
‘This is true. I believe that this St. Paul’s building is more…’ Imran paused, trying to think of an adequate word. ‘It seems to be at the centre of the British political and religious scene.’
Tourak nodded. ‘True, I suppose. Certainly, state occasions are frequently celebrated there, often with members of the Royal Family in attendance.’
‘Also, it had a lot of scaffolding around it when I last saw it. It might make it easier for our people to gain access.’
‘A better way would be to get some of our people employed by the contractors. We have some highly skilled men who have the same convictions that I do, I think we will have no trouble in getting them in there.’
‘That sounds ideal.’
‘Forgive me if you know this but St. Paul’s is undergoing a 300th anniversary restoration. It was planned to be completed by the end of the year but British workmen went on strike so it will have to be its 301st.’
Imran chewed at his lip. ‘I did know that but I failed to realise the place was only 300 years old.’
‘The building itself is only 300 years old but it is built on the site of earlier cathedrals that go back – I don’t know how long, very many centuries anyway – older than the Qur’an.’ Tourak smiled.
The other nodded. ‘So it has a long tradition.’
‘Very long. There is one other thing…’
‘Yes. What is that?’
‘This is, or was, Mr. Hajir’s business. Mr. Hajir has taken all the money from the business’s current account and from the safe.’
Aha thought Imran. The cord which will bind us together. ‘That can be taken care of with a phone call. First, however, we must visit Hajir’s house.’
‘But it is empty.’
‘If he has not left the country, I need to find him. Quickly. The knowledge he has acquired could harm us all.’
***
Hajir had bought a house on Bosworth Road, about a mile and half outside Cambridge. Tourak drove them out there while Imran watched the scenery with interest. ‘Mr. Hajir chose a pleasant part of the country. Expensive, I would have thought.’
‘The business has been quite successful.’ He leaned forward and tapped the E class Mercedes’ dashboard. ‘I, myself, enjoy some of the rewards.’
‘I’m pleased for you.’
Tourak took the car as far from the road as possible, until it was obscured by bushes. ‘Shall I come with you?’
‘I think it best that you wait here. The less that you know, the less you can…’
‘Tell?’
‘Be held responsible for. Do you have the key?’
Tourak shook his head. ‘The back door will probably still be open.’
Imran walked round the end of the house. The door was unlocked and he walked in, entering the kitchen. He explored the house; as Tourak had said, clothes and papers were gone, a scattering of toys suggested young children but little else.
Inside the front door was a small pile of mail – three or four days’ postal deliveries. Imran discarded the bills and opened all the letters, reading each one. There were two that might be of use, one from a woman or a girl named Mitrah and a second from Namvar – a younger boy, he guessed from the name of the school at the top.
Imran returned to the car and showed Tourak the letter. ‘Looks like a boarding school perhaps?’
‘Yes. His son Namvar is there.’
‘I’d assume that he’s taken the boy out of school by now. Ring them will you? Explain who you are, ask if they have a forwarding address.’
Tourak did as Imran asked. After a few seconds of conversation, he turned to Imran. ‘They’re checking.’ He waited a little longer, made a note on a writing pad, then thanked whoever he was speaking to. ‘It’s a possibility. I think it may be an older brother.’
Imran looked at the note pad. ‘Bury St. Edmunds?’
‘Not very far.’
‘Can’t really see him going into hiding there.’
‘Is that all we have?’
‘There’s a woman’s address. Leicester.’
They tried the Bury St. Edmunds address because it was not too far away. It was a small cottage and as empty as Hajir’s house had been except for an email confirmation from Expedia. ‘Tabriz. North, close to Armenia.’ Imran took out his phone and dialled.
‘Useful things, mobile phones.’ Tourak chuckled. ‘So easy to keep in touch.’
‘Hm?’ Imran spoke rapid Arabic, in an accent that Tourak found difficult to follow; recognizing only Hajir’s name.’ He closed the phone and sat back in the passenger seat. ‘Useful? Very. Communications, pictures, documents, even setting off explosions. Hajir will need to step very carefully, if he actually went there.’
‘You don’t think he did?’ Asked Tourak.
‘It might have been misdirection; he could have changed his mind.’
Tourak booked his visitor in to a small anonymous hotel on their return.
‘I’ll see you in the morning and we’ll talk about getting some of your men into St. Paul’s temple.’
‘Cathedral.’
‘Cathedral, yes.’
Later that evening, Imran called some colleagues in Leicester. He explained that there might be an informer there and gave them the woman’s address. ‘Handle it carefully. If he’s not there I don’t want anyone to know about our interest.’
CHAPTER FIVE
It was now the 30th December: D-day or demolition day minus one. Imran did not want to think about the consequences if Hajir had told the authorities anything. Like all good handlers, however, Imran Asseil had no intention of being anywhere near the targets. If Hajir had betrayed them, the man would find out just how far the arm of Islam could reach. The only important thing was to keep that possibility from Fahkri.
New Year’s Eve, 2011 was a busy day.
Fahkri insisted on being the one to press the buttons that would set off the detonators on board the Majesty followed, of course, by the mines buried beneath the grass of Mayflower Park in Southampton. Imran was happy to let one of the brotherhood perform the same task at St. Paul’s and a little later at Trafalgar Square.
Fahkri’s watch had come from Argos. It was not a precision instrument; had it been, the shock of those first explosions along the keel would not have been twelve minutes early. Twelve minutes later, the Majesty would have been opposite the Mayflower Park which had been the captain’s intention. It didn’t really matter, though Fahkri found the whole thing vaguely unsatisfying. It was a pity.
Imran’s experience was quite different. From a distant vantage point, watching the ancient dome collapse into itself was very rewarding; it had been standing there for three centuries and he had broken this symbol of British conceit, where the great and the powerful confronted their God. After that, the collapse of the roofs and the blast of dust and debris through the main doors just added to the feeling of omnipotence.