THE THESEUS PARADOX: The stunning breakthrough thriller based on real events, from the Scotland Yard detective turned author. (17 page)
Authors: David Videcette
Tags: #No. 30, #Subway, #Jake, #Victim, #Scotland Yard, #London Underground, #Police, #England, #Flannagan, #7/7, #Muslim, #British, #thriller, #Bus, #Religion, #Terrorism, #Tube, #Tavistock Square, #Extremism, #Metropolitan Police, #Detective, #Fundamentalist, #Conspiracy Theory, #Britain, #Bombings, #Explosion, #London, #Bomb, #Crime, #Terrorist, #Extremist, #July 2005, #Islam, #Inspector, #Murder, #Islamic, #Bus Bomb, #Plot, #Underground, #7th July, #Number 30 (bus), #Capital, #Fundamentalism, #terror
BOOK: THE THESEUS PARADOX: The stunning breakthrough thriller based on real events, from the Scotland Yard detective turned author.
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Jake had seen it before – a chance for attention, to feel wanted… He knew those feelings himself.
Samir didn’t like to be alone; he was guileless in many ways. Had that innocent look when you first saw him. He just yearned to be part of something that he’d lacked in childhood. But now here he was, clearly in too deep, not knowing know how to swim. He’d never considered the outcome of being caught, he’d been so focussed on just trying to fit in and be part of the crew. He had no strategy for this eventuality.
Samir had been manipulated and used. He was happy to kill for these people; happy to kill himself. He hadn’t expected to still be alive, sat in a police station, powerless and helpless.
The men who had brought Samir to this point, they were the ones Jake wanted to get hold of. They were the ones who needed to be stopped. Going after Samir was like going after a helpless drug addict, the user. If you wanted to make an impact you needed to get the dealer, thought Jake.
‘Samir – would you have been happy killing those people on the Tube and happy killing yourself on 21 July?’
‘That’s what I wanted. I would have been in Paradise with seventy-two virgins now. Instead I am sitting here with you. This is all wrong. Everything has gone wrong.’
Jake knew that Samir had expected to die, yet here he was in an interrogation room, suddenly having to think about his future, realising he’d failed in his quest.
Jake was positive that at this precise moment, given the chance again, Samir would have taken the option to have been shot by police at the coach station.
‘Who has been telling you this nonsense?’ asked Jake.
Samir looked as though the fight had gone out of him. There was a hollowness there. Jake was used to hardened criminals beginning to negotiate with him by this stage of the interview. Yet Samir was vacant. He was broken. There was no attempt to do a deal.
Jake was reaching a dead end. He could sense that there was no spark left to play off. When you shook up a normal criminal in an interview, they’d react like a carbonated soft drink. But Samir was like an empty bottle. There was no vigour, no animation, no fizz. Nothing remained.
Jake stood up. He looked Samir in the eyes.
‘Can you not see you’ve been used, Samir? You are a dangerous individual. But you’re a small fish in a huge sea. You’re deluded and you can’t or won’t see that.’
There was no point in continuing the interview. Samir had nothing else to give. It was a job for another day and possibly another team member.
Jake concluded the interview and turned off the tapes.
Jake was certain that they’d find no evidence at Sullivan House about
who
had brainwashed Samir or
why
he’d been brainwashed.
who
had brainwashed Samir or
why
he’d been brainwashed.
44
Friday
29 July 2005
1805 hours
The flat above the sari shop, Whitechapel, East End of London
Jake watched the news as he ate his dinner, if he could call it a dinner that was. A meal of two bacon sandwiches.
The headlines were dominated by the arrest of two more of the 21/7 bombers in Operation Vivace.
Jake wondered if the newsreaders seemed to like this new diversion into home-grown terrorism. It gave them plenty to talk about. ‘At around 11 a.m. today, armed police surrounded two houses on a rundown estate in the White City area of London. They fired tear gas and stun grenades into the premises where two of the four suspects were arrested.’
The bacon tasted good after the stint at work he’d just done; meetings for the past twelve hours solid. It seemed that everyone in the world was now a terrorist. The Branch wasn’t going to be able to cope if this was the new reality, thought Jake. He couldn’t believe their current funding and manpower would stretch. The Security Service was growing in number too. It seemed that everyone had been caught on the hop by the global threat that Islamic terrorism now posed.
Jake burped as he finished his last crust. He looked down to see that the ketchup from his sandwich had dripped onto his shirt.
‘For God’s sake!’ he sighed heavily to himself.
He was going to have to change it before he went out with Claire. They’d decided to meet at Tiger Tiger in Haymarket for a drink that evening.
As he stripped off, the phone rang.
‘Jake, it’s Claire – I can’t make tonight.’
‘What? You can’t? Are you sure? Can’t you get out of it? What’s going on?’ Jake knew he sounded needy as soon as the words left his mouth.
‘It’s work – been called in last minute. You must have heard about the arrests today?’
Jake sighed. ‘How come they need you on that now? The Met has split the job in two: 7/7 is Operation Theseus and 21/7 is Operation Vivace. We’ve been told to treat them as totally separate and unrelated. What’s the real story? Tell me what’s going on.’
‘I can’t, Jake… You know what it’s like here… I can’t share it with you at the moment. Just…’
‘OK, another time.’ He hung up the phone without allowing her to say anything more; his way of protesting.
He walked to the fridge in his small flat and opened the door. Beer and the leftovers from yesterday’s meat-feast pizza were the remaining delights that it had on offer.
The news was still on. He shoved a slice of pizza into his mouth as he turned over to the football. ‘Fuck you and your terrorists. Fuck the lot of you!’ he shouted with his mouth full.
He cracked open his first can of lager. His palate watered as the scent hit him; the ritual of the habitual drinker.
Ted the cat was scratching at the cork wallpaper, begging to be let out.
He hated it when she massaged the wall with her claws, like a cheese grater. It was like she was throwing out a challenge to him. ‘What are you going to do, Jake? Lock me out? Not feed me?’
Jake couldn’t be bothered to move, and growled like a dog at her.
In response, Ted promptly jumped down from the window ledge and coolly wandered over to Jake’s yucca plant, which was sat in the corner of the lounge. She leapt up into the plant pot and relieved herself in disgust. The soil would have to do as her litter tray for now.
That made at least two females in his life that he wasn’t on perfect terms with right now, thought Jake.
45
Monday
1 August 2005
1333 hours
Dudley Hill police station, Bradford, West Yorkshire
Back in the office, after a weekend without Claire and a flying visit to see the kids, he realised grimly that it was almost a month since the first bombings. And where were they now? No further on, it seemed.
Jake sighed and went to find a quiet room with a TV and DVD player. He had been tasked by Denswood to undertake a special job. He’d been given some film footage to watch. Jake had not been told
how
it had been obtained, but he knew it had come from MI6 and that the method by which it had been acquired was top secret.
how
it had been obtained, but he knew it had come from MI6 and that the method by which it had been acquired was top secret.
It was of Wasim and had been filmed in Pakistan at some point during the winter of 2004. Wasim was sat in the corner of a room, in front of a fabric backdrop patterned with red and cream stripes. Jake had researched the material. It was readily available in Pakistan, but you couldn’t purchase it in the UK.
On his head, Wasim wore a red and white chequered scarf. A traditional keffiyeh, it was tied tightly around his forehead with the loose ends left flowing down behind him.
Jake watched him carefully as he spoke.
‘We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation,’ said Wasim chillingly, yet with a familiar Yorkshire brogue.
He had travelled to Pakistan in November 2004, seemingly in good health, but on the TV screen Wasim looked extremely thin. He’d lost a lot of weight compared to the family photos Jake had seen. Maybe it was the stress of saying farewell to his wife and daughter? That couldn’t have been easy. Or maybe he’d picked up a stomach bug like on his previous trip to Pakistan in 2001, when he’d had to return home through ill health?
Jake thought back to February 2004 and the conversation he’d overheard Wasim having with the Crawley lot on that windy and rainy night in Sussex. He’d sounded like he never intended on coming back from the trip to Pakistan. He’d even resigned from his position at the school where he worked. It looked to all intents and purposes that he had planned to become a martyr abroad – on foreign soil.
But then he’d come back. Why had he returned home in February 2005? The intention to return to the UK from Pakistan had surely been made over there. It looked like someone, somewhere, had convinced Wasim to return, in order to undertake a suicide mission on home soil. That, or he had sought permission to do it – and it had been granted.
Al-Qaeda logos were plastered all over the footage, together with claims that it had been produced by the al-Sahab video production house. It seemed to Jake that there were lots of messages in this video. Hidden messages. He just couldn’t decipher them at the moment.
The clock kept showing 8.50 on the cartoon start of the video, the time that the bombs went off. Had this been agreed in advance? Why was that relevant? What were they trying to say?
Wasim continued his sermonising. ‘…Raise me amongst those whom I love like the prophets… I and thousands like me are forsaking everything for what we believe… Our driving motivation doesn’t come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer… Accept the work from me and my brothers and enter us into the gardens of paradise.’
Over and over again, Jake watched the video of Wasim explaining why he would soon martyr himself. He watched it two hundred times, possibly more, until eventually he could no longer stand it.
He needed a break.
All he could see in his head was Wasim talking to him. He was tired.
He got up, made himself a coffee, then logged on to the internet and trawled through the news reports covering the 2001 Twin Towers attacks in New York – the attacks that made bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network known to every household in the world.
Jake looked at the time that the first plane had hit the World Trade Centre.
0850 hours.
The time on the clock in the video.
The time of the attacks in London.
If al-Qaeda were claiming this attack, saying they had also attacked London, why not release Wasim’s martyr video immediately?
If they’d filmed it and had it in their possession, why wasn’t it released on 7 July – as soon as the bombings were perpetrated? That would have got them maximum media exposure, surely?
Why had this footage taken so long to come to light if they were responsible?
Had someone been holding it back until the last of the 21/7 lot were arrested? If so, then the 7/7 and 21/7 attacks must surely have been connected?
If someone had had since the winter to edit the footage and put all the al-Qaeda graphics on top, thought Jake, then why wasn’t it ready to go by 6 July?
After all, that was the original date that the attacks had been planned for – before Wasim’s wife had been rushed to hospital with pregnancy complications and everything had been delayed.
46
Monday
1 August 2005
2334 hours
Greek Street, Leeds, West Yorkshire
Jake was drunk; his team had all gone back to their hotels.
He called Claire.
‘Jake, what is it?’ Claire sounded like she’d just woken up.
‘Hey, you OK? I miss you! What are you doing?’ Jake slurred down the phone.
‘Well, I was sleeping, Jake. And by the sounds of it, you should be too.’
‘I just wanted a friendly ear to talk to. Everyone hates me. Those that don’t hate me have gone home. I’m on my own. I want you to talk to me.’ Jake had to shout above the late-night revellers packing the crowded cobbles.
‘Jake, get some sleep. Call me in the morning.’
‘When are you coming to see me?’ he pleaded.
There was no response.
Jake stared forlornly at the call-ended sign. Claire had hung up on him.
‘I
need
love! I’m going to find someone to love me tonight…’ he shouted to no one in particular, before tagging onto the back of what looked like a fun, lively crowd. He followed them into a club playing loud music. The door staff took some money off him. He had no idea how much. He didn’t really care. It was noisy; there were people dancing and drinking. They were the type he needed right now. Not the sleeping type. Not the grumpy type. Not the fundamentalist bomber type… but the happy type; the drunken type.
need
love! I’m going to find someone to love me tonight…’ he shouted to no one in particular, before tagging onto the back of what looked like a fun, lively crowd. He followed them into a club playing loud music. The door staff took some money off him. He had no idea how much. He didn’t really care. It was noisy; there were people dancing and drinking. They were the type he needed right now. Not the sleeping type. Not the grumpy type. Not the fundamentalist bomber type… but the happy type; the drunken type.
When Jake awoke the following morning, he wasn’t alone in bed.
47
Tuesday
2 August 2005
0930 hours
Dudley Hill police station, Bradford, West Yorkshire
Tuesday morning meant that it was time, once again, for another update meeting between the Leeds team and the Major Incident Room down in London. Jake felt as though these video conferences were starting to eat away at his soul. He could see that they were all working in separate silos which should have been joined up, but weren’t. There were now around three thousand people on the job. They had created a monster.
Back in London, the Major Incident Room would decide what actions would be undertaken for the rest of the week. Jake wondered whether the slower some people could perform an action, the more money they hoped to pocket in overtime.
That morning was the usual. The analysts seemed to be no further forward with the phone data from the bombers’ phones and the MIR manager had talked a lot about systems administration management, how many new staff had been brought in and how much overtime was being undertaken.
Jake had had a month’s worth of this. They’d not come up with anything. He was starting to feel that things weren’t looking too rosy.
He murmured under his breath, ‘Jesus H Christ. We’ve got three thousand people working on this and we still haven’t made any progress?’
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