Intercept (22 page)

“Who me?” said Mack. “Steady on, old buddy. I’m just planning to have a chat.”

“Of course,” said the CO. “Just a little chat.”

The tea arrived, hot, along with officers’ mess Royal Crown Derby cups and saucers, curved milk jug, sugar bowl, and a plate of biscuits. Mack sipped gratefully. He loved tea when it was made by the British. And he liked Russ Makin as much as he had ever liked any serving officer anywhere in the world.

“Okay, Mack,” said Russ. “Since you’re plainly on your way to the bloody Stone Cattle, in the kind of car they routinely give to any old messenger boy, I’d better tell you my brief.”

“Shoot.”

“I am your contact and your link. You will not be moving signals through any other source. This office is effectively your command post. I have written down my private cell phone and my e-mail. This is my personal land line number, and, if all fails, you know the main number of the base. Any time you need to, grab a phone and reverse the charges to my office. Also I am forbidden to admit to one living soul that I have ever been in contact with you since we left Iraq.”

“How about the Green Dragon?”

“Screw the Green Dragon. And, before you ask, no, there isn’t a chance in hell this office has been, is, or will ever be, bugged.”

“How do you know?”

“Because this is the toughest, most brutally efficient military base in the world.”

“Second.”

“Who once saved your life,
Lieutenant
Commander Bedford?”

“Same guy who was darn near captured by the Iraqis, and I had to shoot all three of them and then throw their boss off the top of the oil rig.”

“Well, we can all have a bit of luck,” replied Russ Makin, laughing. “I wonder if we could be serious for a moment.”

“Okay. Let’s give it a shot.”

“Right. I am briefed that you are no longer a serving officer in the U.S. armed forces?”

“Correct.”

“However, your mission is classified to the highest possible degree. Your contacts, through me, are heads of department only—CIA, NSA, Pentagon, Navy, and Scotland Yard antiterror. And that Detective Superintendent West Yorkshire Police. That’s my brief.”

“And mine.”

“I understand I may not know the nature of the mission?”

“Correct.”

“But I can guess.”

“Very possibly.”

“I am also instructed to provide you with any and all assistance you may request. Actually, Mack, they did not use the word ‘request.’ They used ‘demand.’ Whatever it is you’re working on, you’d better not screw it up.”

“How about rescue? Should I end up in deepest excrement?”

“I am ordered to activate an entire platoon 22 SAS and get you out at all costs.”

“Comforting.”

“You want to tell me what’s happening?”

“Hell, yes. But I cannot.”

“Well, you have to tell me where you are going. Or I can’t effect a rescue.”

“Guess so. But only when I demand it. Right now, I’m Secret Mack.”

“Okay. You staying for dinner?”

“If I get invited. No point arriving in Bradford in the middle of the goddamned night.”

“You going straight to the old Stone Cattle tomorrow, right after you leave here?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll need twenty-four hours to get my bearings. But there’s quite a lot of stuff I’d like to check out with you before I leave. Can I have another cup of that tea?”

 

RUSS AND MACK DINED TOGETHER
in his private house, away from the other officers. There was a ripple of curiosity throughout the base as to the identity of their guest, but no one could find out who he was.

Mack had breakfast in his own room and then spent the morning working with Russ on his big computer screen, familiarizing himself with the Yorkshire Moors and the access roads that led to and from one of the loneliest parts.

Right after lunch, he started his 125-mile journey to Bradford. He headed west, up to the M5 motorway, a very fast stretch of road leading on to the M6, and then the M62, a six-lane highway carving straight through industrial Lancashire to the southern approaches to Bradford.

He arrived in Bradford at 8 p.m. totally unaware of the chaos his presence in the UK had caused the previous evening. Detective Superintendent Len Martin had considered he might become a laughingstock if he had admitted the four terrorists had slipped clean through his net, probably within hours of landing in Yorkshire. So he ordered Sergeant Thomas literally to ransack Darsfield Street, forcing entry into houses listed as “occupied by known Islamic fanatics,” on the pretence of searching for drugs, weapons, or bombmaking equipment.

“I don’t care if it takes all night,” Martin told Detective Sergeant Thomas. “Find those four guys who met the mullah up by the rocks this afternoon.”

“I can’t arrest them, can I?” said Thomas. “They haven’t actually done anything.”

“I don’t want them arrested yet. I just need to know precisely where they are living in our city, all right?”

And so Sergeant Thomas and a heavy hit-squad, comprised of twenty-four armed officers, two big police vans, four tracker dogs, three police photographers, and an ambulance (just in case), had swooped down on unsuspecting Darsfield Street just before dark.

They had kicked down two doors, hit another with a sledgehammer, dragged sleeping Muslims out of bed. They shouted, intimidated, threatened, and generally played hell, for two hours, until they reached the last of the seven houses on their roster.

Right there the game changed. The entire street by now was aware that something was happening, and there were lights on in number 289, which now had six officers guarding the back door, with another eight at the front, machine guns leveled.

Sergeant Thomas himself had banged on the door. And it was answered immediately by Ibrahim Sharif. Behind him stood Yousaf Mohammed and Ben al-Turabi. All eight of West Yorkshire’s finest came charging into the house. They lined up the three Islamists at gunpoint against the wall. Then they searched the entire place, finding no explosives but a large bag of chemical fertilizer and several detonators, plus wired batteries. Any experienced policemen, especially in Bradford, knew precisely what this meant. Bombs.

Then Sergeant Thomas discovered Abu Hassan Akbar locked in the bathroom. He’d found all four of the men he’d photographed; all four at once. Bloody good night’s work that.

He handcuffed and arrested them immediately on suspicion of attempting to make IEDs (improvised explosive devices). He was taking the law into his own hands, knowing it would be a hard charge to prove, and that he could only detain them in Yorkshire for forty-eight hours. But he also knew someone, somewhere, would be bloody grateful to him. He ordered them to bring their passports, documents, and visas, and to get into the police van, right away.

With blue lights flashing, the dark blue paddy wagon was flung open to admit the four recently arrived killers, and they stumbled into the wide mobile rear section, uncertain of the fate that awaited them.

They arrived in the holding cells, just before Mack Bedford touched base by phone with Len Martin. He announced himself as “Black Bear,” as arranged, and informed the detective superintendent he was calling from SAS home base. He also told him he would arrive the following evening, and requested that someone check him into the agreed hotel.

Martin told him he would provide clear information when he arrived. He and Sergeant Thomas had already issued the legally required warnings to Ibrahim, Yousaf, Ben, and Abu. Photographs confirmed there was no doubt whatsoever about the identification of the four men they were detaining.

Ibrahim had asked permission to make one call, to Sheikh Abdullah Bazir, since he guessed he needed to speak to a lawyer. Martin denied this permission for a period of twelve hours while they examined the confiscated
bombmaking equipment. He made the excuse that he may elect to release them all, subject to this examination.

He was, of course, breaking the law. In England, even terrorists are permitted immediate access to a lawyer. But Martin reasoned if any trouble ensued, he could always nail them on student visa irregularities.

 

BY THE TIME
Mack actually checked into the Cow and Calf Hotel, Len Martin had had the Chosen Ones under lock and key for twenty-four hours, and he was beginning to feel a little jumpy, since that was an inordinate amount of time to prevent any suspects, never mind terrorist suspects, from speaking to a lawyer. So Martin was relieved when Mack called in from the hotel, announcing that he would like to meet the four terrorists alone, up near the rocks, the following evening at 9:30 p.m. Mack told Martin to drive them up there, inform them a friend was meeting them at the base of the small stone, and then liberate them.

“That’s the outside limit of my holding time,” he replied. “Will the result be as we expect?”

“Yes,” replied Mack. “I’ll call in with details for the clean-up before I leave.”

“SAS?”

“Affirmative.”

 

AS MILITARY STYLE
operations go, this one was proceeding smoothly. Mack called Russ Makin and alerted him to have a Chinook helicopter ready to come in with body bags around 2130 the following evening. The SAS boss placed one on immediate stand-by at the British Army garrison at Catterick on the edge of Hipswell Moor, forty-five miles and fifteen minutes north of Bradford. Martin entered his data on his desktop computer and e-mailed everything to Lt. Colonel Makin in Credenhill, as ordered by Scotland Yard.

Four hours later, he sent the four prisoners coffee and sandwiches, which he hoped would shut them up. Then he left for the night.

For the past eight months, the Bradford HQ of West Yorkshire Police, had harbored a “mole”—a twenty-five-year-old Pakistani janitor named Freddie, who worked three nights a week. He was a cheerful young man, who studied—sometimes—by day, in one of the myriad of “universities” situated in the borough of Manningham. Everyone liked Freddie, but there were two things about him that no one knew. One was that he held a master’s degree in Internet Technology from Cornell University. The
other was that he was a skilled bombmaker, who planned to blast the Bradford Police HQ off the map.

Freddie worked for Sheikh Abdullah. His father had died in the American bombing of Tora Bora, close to where bin Laden lived. Freddie was an Islamic extremist, right on the cusp of pure fanaticism.

And now he moved stealthily, standing in the shadows as Len Martin and his driver exited the building. With his mop slung over his left shoulder and bucket of hot soapy water in hand, he walked down the long corridor to the superintendent’s office. He took out his key chain and carefully selected a master key from the bundle, letting himself into Len Martin’s office.

Without turning on a light, he booted up the computer and waited for the screen to light up. He opened the e-mail window, as he’d done just about every night, and scrolled through.

He stopped at the one tagged “SAS Contact,” which he opened and read:

Freddie quickly wrote down notes on Len Martin’s pad, then scanned the list again until he found one called “Chosen Ones.” He opened that and found the names identified by U.S. Intelligence, against the photographs—Ibrahim Sharif, Yousaf Mohammed, Ben al-Turabi, and Abu Hassan Akbar. This computer was the only place in the station where their names were written down.

“By the Prophet! Body bags! SAS! They’re going to murder my brothers,” breathed Freddie. “Tomorrow night at 9:30 up at the two rocks.”

He ripped out his cell phone and called Sheikh Abdullah Bazir, who answered sleepily, but snapped into high alert quickly. He grabbed a pen and paper and wrote down the details, not understanding for one moment how the Yorkshire Police could possibly know The Chosen Ones were in the country, nor how the police had correctly identified them, with accurate names, in so short a time. He thanked Freddie, who then switched off Len Martin’s computer and carried on mopping the station floor.

Sheikh Abdullah then proceeded to telephone three of his most ruthless assassins, men who had been fortunate not to have been sentenced to
life imprisonment after their suspected involvement with the August 2006 plot to blow up seven passenger jets over the North Atlantic with liquid bombs.

That was a plot planned in the Swat Valley to be carried out by al-Qaeda associates based in England. Several had subsequently received massive jail sentences, and several had worked directly for Sheikh Abdullah Bazir.

Britain’s antiterrorist forces had done spectacularly well to foil this outrageous scheme to kill possibly 2,800 trans-Atlantic passengers, a number eerily close to the total death-count at the Twin Towers in 2001.

Three of the culprits were still free, and now Sheikh Abdullah had them on the line, detailing their next mission. They were told to report to the Cow and Calf Rocks at 8:30 p.m. tonight, and then seek and kill without mercy the man who would try to murder the Chosen Ones at around 9:30 p.m.

“He is probably very dangerous,” said the Sheikh. “Go well armed and shoot to kill. No need to hide evidence. You will leave for Pakistan before the body is found. Bradford Airport. Iran Air charter jet.”

“Consider it done, master,” the assassins replied. “We will not fail you.”

“Go with Allah,” said the Sheikh. “For He will go with you. Allahu Akbar.”

 

SHEIKH ABDULLAH SOUNDED CONFIDENT
, assured, determined. In truth, he was not. Someone was going to die out there. And the Sheikh wasn’t sure who that someone might be. There would be someone out there, maybe alone, maybe not, but almost certainly a professional killer hired by either the Americans or the Brits—someone who truly knew the track record of the Chosen Ones. He could only hope that his trusted assassins, all from Pakistan, would locate their enemy and put him to the sword. Three against one seemed to favor his men. However, three against two was less appealing, and he hoped the government’s killer would come alone. He resorted to prayer, imploring Allah to grant him justice, and to lead his servants out on the moors tonight along the path of light.