Bombproof (20 page)

Ruiz doesn’t need a reason to get out of bed every morning and he doesn’t need to be surrounded by people, not like some who are never certain of exactly who they are until they see themselves reflected in the eyes of others.

His mind is dragged back to Nadia Macbeth. In the past two days she and her brother - two people he knows only from a photograph - have snagged his thoughts and haunted his waking hours. They remind him of a vine that grows in the jungles of Belize that the locals call ‘the one way tree’. The tendrils have barbed hooks that are almost invisible until you stumble into them. Then it’s too late. You can’t go back without tearing your skin to pieces. The only way out is to go forward, deeper into the vines.

A police siren passes outside, growing louder and then softer. Ten or twenty years ago a police siren could increase Ruiz’s heart rate and set adrenalin coursing through his system. Not any more. The behaviour of stupid, violent people no longer interests him. Their motives are not his concern. The behaviour of clever, driven, dangerous people is a different story. People like Ray Garza and Tony Murphy.

Just before the terrorist bombings in London on July 7, 2005, a CCTV camera picked up images of a dark-haired man in a light blue shirt, carrying a rucksack. He was filmed entering a pharmacy in Kings Cross where he bought indigestion pills and nail-clippers. Less than fifty minutes later he detonated a bomb that killed twenty-three people and injured more than a hundred.

That’s the sort of fact that snags in Ruiz’s mind, pointless perhaps, but captivating. When they found the bomber’s body parts spread across the carriage, did they come across a finger? Was the nail neatly trimmed?

He calls Fiona Taylor and asks her for another favour - a background check on a Rastafarian junkie and dealer called Puffa.

‘You really know how to pick your times,’ she tells him. ‘We have a live operation in Soho.’

‘I can see that,’ says Ruiz, glancing at the TV. ‘There’s no hurry.’

Fiona promises to get back to him. In the meantime Ruiz returns to his Guinness, keeping one eye on the TV screen.

They’re broadcasting CCTV footage of a suspect seen running from Oxford Circus Underground. The first part of the video is grainy and blurred. Side-on. A second camera picks up the man as he crosses the street. He stops at a street corner. Looks both ways. Adjusts a rucksack on his back.

The image freezes and zooms in on the suspect’s face. There’s something familiar about him. Ruiz yells at the barman to turn up the volume. He can’t find the remote. He searches. Finds the unit. Amplifies the sound.

Half the story is enough. It’s a word association game: siege … terrorist … hostages … Soho.

Another image flashes on screen - a photograph of Sami Macbeth, with long hair, a Nirvana T-shirt and skinny-leg jeans. He’s pouting at the camera, going for the angry don’t-fuck-with-me look, as though he’s posing for publicity pictures instead of a police mug shot.

Ruiz swallows his beer and walks out onto Fleet Street, turns right and strolls past the double-decker buses and black cabs.

Sami Macbeth has been out of jail for fifty-six hours and in that time he has turned himself into a human headline. The kid has a talent for trouble.

34

The street is a no go area. Paper coffee cups and wrappers spin across the pavement, getting trapped against lamp-posts and the tyres of chained bicycles.

Sami tells Lucy to watch the front window. ‘Tell me what you can see?’

‘Nothing.’

‘There must be something.’

‘Which part of nothing would you like me to describe?’

A breaking news banner flashes on TV: SOHO SIEGE.

The streets have been cordoned off. Police in black body armour are spilling from buses and taking up positions, as though ready to fight a small war.

‘Eyewitnesses say a man claiming to have a bomb took over a restaurant in Chinatown at two o’clock this afternoon. We believe that hostage negotiators have made contact with the hostage taker but as yet his demands are unknown …’

A photograph of Sami flashes onto the screen. His police mugshot. He had longer hair, fewer lines and not a care in the world because he knew it was all a misunderstanding and the jewels in Andy Palmer’s van had nothing to do with him. He was innocent. The truth would out.

Only it didn’t. Sami took the fall. He didn’t fall under the wheels of a truck like Andy Palmer. He fell onto the wrong side of the tracks. He fell through the cracks. He fell out of favour.

‘… The suspect’s name is Sami Robert Macbeth, born in Glasgow, raised in south London, to an Algerian mother and a Scottish father. Macbeth was released from prison only days ago having served less than three years for possession of stolen goods. Counter-terrorism experts believe he converted to Islam in prison, influenced by the gangs …’

Gangs? Radical Islam? The only prayers Sami said in prison were directed to the parole board.

‘An organisation calling itself the Al Qaeda Martyr’s Brigade has claimed responsibility for the bombings. It is likely to be one of the loose splinter groups that have flourished since the War on Terror began, with only tenuous links to Al Qaeda, but funded through Middle Eastern banks and sympathisers …’

Sami shakes his head in disbelief. Who are these experts?

‘Counter-terrorism authorities are also speculating on why the suspect failed to detonate his device. Some believe the device may have misfired or he could have had second thoughts about committing suicide.’

So not only am I an Islamic extremist, I’m also a coward, thinks Sami. How much worse can it get. They know his name. They have his photograph. What hope has he got of finding Nadia now or leading a normal life?

Some time soon they’re going to make a decision and ‘neutralise the threat’. They’ll use SWAT teams or maybe even the SAS, who’ll swing from the roof and crash through the doors. Teargas. Flash bangs. Explosions. They’ll come in wearing body armour with enough firepower to blow him into next year.

Sami’s mind is fraying, his body aching, his batteries on empty. Whichever way he looks at the situation, he’s screwed. If he walks out the front door they’re going to kill him or put him away for twenty years in a high security wing. He blew up a strong room. Stole evidence. They’ll blame him for what happened to the train. How many people are dead?

Sami can already smell the boiled cabbage and septic stench of the showers; and feel the scum-coloured water back up around his ankles. The prison sisters will welcome him back. They’ll kick his legs apart. Brace him against the wall. Take turns. Nothing is going to protect him if he goes inside again. He’ll be a skidmark on the bowl.

If he tells the truth, Murphy will kill Nadia. If he keeps schtum he might survive for a few months inside until Murphy takes out extra insurance and has him killed. It won’t matter how long he stays in solitary, eventually he’ll be on his own. That’s when someone will lift him over a third-floor railing or jam a homemade knife under his ribs.

Sami lowers his eyes and stares at his hands, tightening them into fists, kneading his thumbs against his forefingers. Then he pushes them beneath his thighs to stop them shaking.

The phone rattles on the table.

‘Hello, Sami.’ It’s Bob. ‘I know your name now. We don’t have to pretend any more.’

‘I haven’t been pretending.’

‘I know but there won’t be any mix-ups or confusion. We can have a better dialogue.’

Bob makes it sound like they’re on a corporate training weekend.

There is another long pause. Sami considers hanging up, but Bob jumps in with a question.

‘Where are you from, Sami?’

‘You know where I’m from.’

‘You’ve had a tough few years. Prison and now this …’

No shit, thinks Sami, as Bob continues, getting dangerously close to commiserating. He’s sounding so affable at any moment he’s going invite Sami out for a pint and a kebab.

‘You got a family?’

‘A sister.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Nadia.’

‘Where is she now?’

That’s a good question, thinks Sami. Maybe the police can find her. He could make it a demand.

‘I don’t know where she is.’

‘You lost touch.’

‘You could say that.’

Bob Piper covers the mouthpiece. ‘Find his sister. We need to talk to her.’ He’s back with Sami again. ‘Tell me what you want and I’ll try to help.’

‘I want a miracle.’

‘I don’t do miracles.’

‘I want to be somewhere else.’

Sami presses the red button. Ends the call. He’s squatting in the corner of the restaurant, his arms crossed over his knees, his chin resting on his arms. The others are watching, waiting for him to do something.

Persephone has packed away her drawings. Her mother is clutching a set of wooden rosary beads, worn smooth by her fingers. Lucy’s eyes flit from her parents and back to Sami, somehow concentrating on both.

Sami’s guts are churning. When he gets scared it goes straight to his bowels. He’s shaking. Strung out. Devoid of hope. Something has broken inside him and he can’t go on.

Slowly opening his fists, he touches his face with his fingers. He needs a shave. A shower.

That’s when it happens. An idea clicks into place. It’s huge. It’s risky. It’s something he can only fuck up once.

He picks up the mobile.

‘Bob, I want the van.’

The negotiator is taken by surprise.

‘What van?’

‘The one parked outside, next to the restaurant - the white Mercedes.’

‘What about the hostages?’

‘I’m taking them with me.’

‘I can’t let you do that.’

‘Don’t disappoint me, Bob.’

‘I mean it, Sami. I can’t let you take them.’

‘Yes you can. You don’t want blood on your hands.’

Bob is asking Sami to stay calm, but that’s the thing - he’s already calm. This is a calmness he hasn’t experienced before.

‘Listen to me. You’re not taking the van and you’re not leaving with the hostages.’

‘No, you listen, Bob. You’re a negotiator, am I right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well how come this isn’t a negotiation? In a proper negotiation you’d give me something and I’d give you something in return. We’d barter. We’d agree. So far you don’t seem to understand the rules.’

Bob gets annoyed. ‘I’ve been very reasonable.’

‘So far you’ve told me if I give myself up you won’t shoot me. That’s a threat, not an offer. The way I see it, I’m either going to die today or rot in prison. That’s not much of a choice, is it?’

Bob doesn’t say anything for a moment.

‘I might be able to arrange the van. I need some time.’

‘Oh, come on, Bob. The humble servant routine is wearing thin. I saw you on TV. You’re in charge. You’re the main man.’

‘I can’t let you leave with the hostages.’

‘That’s something we can negotiate about. Each time you do something nice for me, Bob, I’ll let one of the hostages go.’

‘Just one?’

‘Maths wasn’t your strongest subject, was it Bob?’

35

Bones McGee is pacing his office, stopping occasionally to glance at the TV. The situation isn’t improving. He calls Murphy.

‘That little problem we discussed earlier - it hasn’t gone away.’

Murphy doesn’t say a word.

‘We got a kid holed up in a restaurant who says he has a bomb. He looks remarkably like the same kid we caught on a CCTV outside the Old Bailey.’

Still there’s no reply.

‘Are you listening to me, Tony? This kid could tear the arse out of everything.’

‘He knows to keep his mouth shut.’

‘I appreciate you showing faith in the boy but if he sings we all go down.’

‘He won’t say a word. I got leverage.’

‘Yeah, well I’m pulling the plug, Tony. I’m out. I’m walking away.’

‘It doesn’t work that way, Bones.’

‘Yeah it does. You don’t call me. I don’t call you. It’s that simple.’

‘Don’t tell me what’s simple. I’m not some shit-for-brains Mick just off the ferry at Holyhead. Maybe you think you can play both sides of the fence and get your rozzer mates round my joint knocking on my door with a battering ram, carrying a warrant signed by whats-his-face, the Lord Chancellor.

‘Well, don’t go getting any ideas. You’re not Frank fucking Serpico. You mess with me and I’ll start a war with your body parts. I’ll cut them off one at a time. I’ll dig a hole and bury you so deep not even your arse-sniffing mates in the dog squad will ever find you. You hear what I’m saying, Bones? That’s the blood, the guts and the feathers of it. The whole story.’

Silence.

‘Are you reading me, you arsehole?’

‘Yeah.’

Tony Murphy slams down the phone and grimaces. His ulcer is playing up. What with his gout, high blood pressure and haemorrhoids, he should have bought shares in Boots.

Bones is getting nervous. He has no idea how nervous he should be. If Old Bill gets hold of that shooter Macbeth is carrying, he can forget about his Ibiza apartment and his well-funded retirement.

They’re going test the gun, match the bullet and then the shit is gonna hit the proverbial. MI5, MI6, Special Branch, SOCA, the CIA and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, for all Murphy knows, will come looking for them. And they’re the good guys, as opposed to Jimmy Ferris and his mates who won’t bother with warrants and due process and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

Instead Jimmy will take them out onto a deserted beach and put a bullet in their heads. One shot. No tears.

Murphy has always regarded himself as a thinker. Someone interested in exit strategies and contingencies, which are things most villains forget. They plan for an operation going right and ignore the possibilities of fuck-ups or bad luck. These same villains will gladly accept happy accidents as being a bonus but spend a dozen years in prison whinging about how they got screwed by an unfortunate happenstance.

Murphy glances out the patio doors into his garden. The marquee has been packed up and trucked away. A catering van is being loaded with the last of the tables.

Whatever happens he has to distance himself from what happened today, from the robbery, the bombing, from Sami Macbeth. His alibi is secure. A hundred people can vouch for his whereabouts.