The Balance of Guilt (26 page)

‘They’re coming back in,’ Claire said calmly. ‘The spooks will be here in seconds.’

13, 12, 11
 …

Adam wrenched at his tie. ‘Come on, come on, come on,’ he urged. ‘Come up with something. Please! It’s our last chance.’

No one spoke. The voices outside were moving closer. The room felt very warm.

8, 7, 6
 …

‘It’s our last chance,’ Adam prompted. ‘Try anything. What the hell have we got left to lose?’

Dan spun through his memories of Ahmed. They needed something, anything that might provide a clue about the number he would use to protect the phone. He glanced at Claire and could see she was doing the same. She was standing perfectly still, her eyes closed.

And she looked beautiful.

4, 3, 2
 …

Adam let out another moan. ‘We’re screwed. So near and yet so far.’

Claire reached past him and typed in a number.

0911

The phone’s display froze, then went blank.

‘What’s it doing?’ Adam whispered. ‘What the fuck’s happening?’

‘It’s either wiping itself or letting us in,’ Dan replied. ‘But, whatever, that was a hell of a good shout, Claire.’

‘It was the best I could think of,’ she said softly. ‘The most notorious terrorist outrage in history. Just the sort of thing a bastard like Ahmed might use for his PIN.’

The phone’s display was still blank.

‘The trouble is,’ she added, with all the incongruous cool of an iceberg in the desert, ‘the way it’s referred to isn’t universal. 9/11 comes from how Americans talk about the attacks. But in our calendar it’s 11/09. So I could be on the right track, but still wrong.’

The display flickered. A couple of lines played along the screen, but it remained empty.

‘It could just as easily be 2001, from the year of the attack,’ Claire added. ‘If we’re even on the right track at all, which is by no means guaranteed, of course.’

Still nothing from the phone.

‘It’s wiping its memory, isn’t it?’ Adam said quietly. ‘We’re stuffed.’

‘Well, I reckon it was a damn good idea and well worth a try,’ Dan said. ‘We had nothing else.’

He patted Claire’s shoulder and she smiled.

Footfall in the corridor. Voices, loud, outside the door. Oscar and Sierra.

The door of the Bomb Room swung open.

Now the phone’s display was changing. In motion so slow as to be agonising, it illuminated. And formed a word.

One simple word, so very common, but at this moment, in this place and this context, so very beautiful.

Welcome

I
F EVER IT’S POSSIBLE
to condense the menace of a coming storm into one small room, then that time was now.

It felt as though the air was drying to aridity. The pressure rising, squeezing eyes and eardrums alike. The cloying tightness of the claustrophobia closed in around. The light dimmed, the blackness colouring each shade of grey, the smell of electricity, slowly building, ready to split the air. And all a preparation for the twilight unleashing of the rage.

And if a storm has a nexus, the driver of the beating winds and whirling clouds, and the furnace of the lighting bolts, then that was Adam. He stood, perfectly still, eyes unnaturally bright and unblinking, staring at the door. Only the ruddy colour of the detective’s complexion betrayed the wrath.

Oscar strode into the room, calm and cool, swaggering and cocky. But he stopped in a second when he saw the briefcase, open on the desk. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

Adam took a couple of steps towards him and held up the plastic bag containing the phone. Its display was still glowing. His voice was low and full of menace.

‘We’re solving a dreadful crime. We’re bringing justice to the families of the people who were killed and injured. And we’re uncovering a conspiracy amongst the very people who are supposed to be protecting the public.’

A finger jabbed out, right in Oscar’s face. ‘That’s you, in case you were wondering. Would you like me to charge you with being an accessory to murder now, or later?’

A voice from the doorway. Sierra. ‘I think we all need to calm down. This isn’t quite as simple as you might think.’

Adam snorted unpleasantly. ‘Well, what a surprise. Do you know, I thought you might say that?’

She turned to the group of detectives who had gathered in the corridor, ushered them away from the Bomb Room, closed the door and walked over to stand beside Oscar.

‘There’s a bigger picture here,’ she said.

‘Really?’ Adam replied scornfully. ‘Funnily enough, I suspected that might be the case too. One that’s far too complicated for a mere country cop like me to understand, by any chance?’

‘Look, you …’ Oscar began, but Sierra laid a hand on his shoulder, quietening him.

‘I think the time’s come to share some information with our colleagues,’ she said.

‘Well, that’d be nice,’ Adam replied. ‘Only if it’s not too much trouble, of course.’

Oscar was shaking his head angrily, but the firm pressure on his shoulder kept him silent. Sierra sat on the edge of a desk, her voice soft and reasonable. ‘You have to appreciate, Adam, that in our job, we can’t always tell you everything we might like to. But now, given what you’ve found, I don’t think we have any choice.’

Adam folded his arms. ‘Let’s hear what you’ve got to say then. We can discuss the charges you’ll face later.’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Oscar yelled, pulling away from Sierra and striding to within feet of Adam. The detective didn’t react, just held his ground, the contempt ingrained in every line on his face.

‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ the spy ranted. ‘One click of my fingers and you’re squashed mate. You disappear. You’re history. You’re nothing and nobody. You’d better remember that.’

‘That’ll do,’ Sierra snapped. ‘Now, let’s talk.’

And so they did.

The story they told was extraordinary. Dan could feel himself wanting to interrupt at points and could see it in the faces of Claire and Adam too. But with every new and provocative revelation, Adam flashed them a warning look. He wanted to hear what the spooks had to say before he let fly with all that he thought.

Dan could sense it coming. His friend’s neck was red, throbbing, and his tie was low on his collar. Even the usually diplomatic and restrained Claire had let out a couple of hisses of breath at what Sierra told them.

Only part one of the confrontation had been played out. Part two was coming, and quickly.

The spooks knew all about John Tanton and Ahmed. The source inside the Islamic Centre had tipped them off. Ahmed had been expounding his extreme views and Tanton was absorbing them, filling with venom and longing to unleash it. He was growing ever more radical. The danger signs were clear.

They were put under surveillance. Sierra didn’t go into details, but it was apparent their mobile phones and computers had been tapped and that teams were watching their homes and movements. This had been going on for a period of several weeks. Then came the first disclosure that made Adam recoil.

The spooks knew about the plan to attack the Minster.

They had bugged a park bench in Plymouth, one where Tanton and Ahmed often sat to talk. It was the final meeting before the bombing, and held on the Friday afternoon. For those who knew what was truly going on, the watchers, it must have been a surreal sight. Two men, sitting, in the midst of a park, quietly and calmly chatting about a plan for mass murder, while families walked past, their kids riding bicycles, flying kites and kicking footballs.

Tanton had been nervy, but also excited, continually talking about becoming a martyr. Ahmed was calm and reassuring, first telling him of the righteousness of his choice, then once more filling him full of the fires of zealotry with another ranting attack on Britain, its immorality and its persecution of Muslims. They had gone through the checklist of the ingredients needed for the bomb and how to detonate it in order to cause maximum casualties. It was as orderly as a business meeting.

A low growl from Adam, another hiss from Claire. As for Dan, he found he could hardly believe what he was hearing. An amazing story was unfolding in front of him and he wondered how much of it he would ever be able to report. He’d thought about trying to record some of the conversation on his phone, had fumbled in his pocket for the mobile, but Oscar’s look was an effective deterrent.

Dan managed to give the spy a tight smile. He had an issue of his own to raise with the man, if such limp words could ever describe it that way. And whatever Adam said or did, however much he tried to intervene, Dan was going to do it.

Tanton and Ahmed had got up from the bench, embraced, and gone their separate ways. The attack was set for Monday. The irrevocable countdown was running.

‘For God’s sake!’ Claire interjected. ‘Not only did you know, but you had three days warning. You could have stopped it, you could have arrested them, you could have closed the Minster, you could have …’

‘Please just let me finish,’ Sierra interrupted coolly. ‘Then I hope you might understand.’

All weekend, Tanton was kept under surveillance as he bought the final materials for the bomb. On Monday morning, he assembled them, placed them carefully in his rucksack and caught a train to Exeter. He was watched the whole way.

Adam lowered his head into his hands.

‘Look, I know how you’re feeling,’ Sierra told him.

‘I can guarantee you don’t,’ Adam snapped. ‘A train – a bloody train. Filled with families, and kids – and you just let him get on it. And sit there, with a bomb at his feet.’

She was growing impatient now and shot back, ‘Remember, I don’t have to tell you any of this. Please, let me finish before you judge us.’

Tanton walked for ten minutes from Exeter Central station to the Minster. He stopped at a newsagent’s to buy a bottle of lemonade and sat on a wall in the city centre to drink it. Then he began the final walk, to Minster Green.

Dan could see it, as surely as if he was following. Each step taken was one closer to murder and suicide, an outrage in one of the holiest buildings in the country, at the heart of an ancient and peaceful city. A bombing from a clear, sunshine sky.

But now Tanton was showing signs of agitation. The surveillance teams reported he was becoming more difficult to trail, was sweating heavily, kept looking back over his shoulders. He stopped a couple of times, stared up at the sky and even lay the rucksack down.

‘We thought he was going to bottle it,’ Sierra said. ‘That was one of the worst parts of the operation. If he’d run off and left the rucksack behind, we’d have had to evacuate the city centre.’

‘Rather than just letting him blow up the Minster,’ Adam muttered.

She gave him a cold stare, but ignored the jibe and carried on with the story.

Tanton had been seen talking to himself, probably saying some prayers, according to a surveillance officer who walked past. He was hunched over and mumbling. The prayers seemed to rally him. Tanton picked up the rucksack again and headed to the Minster.

He’d walked along a narrow alley between some shops and pubs and emerged into the great green space, the iconic heart of Exeter. The sight had unsettled him. He stopped again, then walked over to a secluded part of the green, beneath an oak tree and made a phone call.

The
phone call.

‘To Ahmed?’ Adam prompted.

‘Yes,’ Sierra replied.

‘And you’ve got all this on tape, no doubt.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why the hell didn’t you tell us?’

Sierra held up her hands. ‘Let me finish and then you’ll understand.’

‘I’ve heard enough of this “I’ll understand” business. I’m betting you I won’t.’

‘Just let her finish,’ Oscar grunted.

The call had been made. As Adam suspected, Tanton was acutely nervous and in need of reassurance. Ahmed had given it, re-stoked the furnace of the young man’s anger. And so Tanton had said one final prayer, walked into the Minster and detonated his bomb.

The aftermath was observed too, including the moment when the plan almost went wrong. Ahmed was chased into the arcade and had hidden his phone in the shop window, forcing Oscar to retrieve it later.

There was a silence in the room. Claire was staring at the floor. Adam ran a hand through his hair. Oscar had folded his arms and was looking at them defiantly. All Dan could manage was to tap a hand on the desk.

The spooks knew about the plan to explode a bomb in the Minster. And they let it happen.

Adam broke the silence. He said heavily, ‘I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel sick.’

Sierra walked across the room to the window and stared out. They watched her, wondered what she was going to do. She just stood, occasionally with the slight movement of a shoe on the carpet tiles, or perhaps a barely perceptible shift of the shoulder.

The clock ticked loudly. Oscar cracked his knuckles and yawned, then picked a morsel of food from his teeth. Adam’s breathing was hard and heavy.

The best part of a minute passed before Sierra turned to them once more.

And there was a surprise in her eyes. She was crying, faint tears glistening traces over her flushed cheeks.

‘It was the hardest call I’ve had to make in almost twenty-five years,’ she said softly. ‘But I still think it was right.’

No one spoke. Dan glanced at Claire. He could see his own thoughts in her expression. Surprise at Sierra’s tears, and suspicion, so much doubt and dubiousness, an unavoidable question as to whether the emotion could be genuine. A relentless torrent of lies makes it difficult to believe in the hope of a whisper of truth.

‘Go on,’ Adam replied, warily.

She half smiled. ‘I sense you’re feeling distrustful.’

‘Well, there’s a surprise. As you’ve been lying to us all along.’

Oscar emitted a growl, but Sierra held up her hand. ‘Our colleague has a point,’ she said. ‘For what it’s worth, I regret having to do so. But what I’ve told you is the truth. And let me give you some more of it.’

Another silence in the room. Sierra rubbed at her eyes, then, in a more brisk tone she said, ‘Right then, this is the reason we’ve had to deceive you.’

They had tampered with the bombs.

‘I can’t give you the details of what we did,’ Sierra said. ‘Simply because I don’t entirely understand it myself. But one of our technical people made a few amendments which meant only one of the bombs could go off.’

The spooks kept surveillance on Tanton’s home over the weekend. On Sunday morning, Alison went out to see some friends and John left to play football. The spies had broken in and a technician examined the bombs.

There were four, in large glass bottles, filled with an explosive mixture of chemicals and nails. They were hidden under Tanton’s bed, just the way young men had concealed their secrets for countless generations. But seldom quite like this.

The bombs were crude, but entirely viable, quite sufficient to cause carnage. The confined space of the Minster, and its great stone walls would serve to amplify the blast. The shattering glass and flying nails would create dreadful shrapnel. The technician’s assessment was that scores of people could be killed.

‘That was another difficult call,’ Sierra said, in a measured tone. ‘We had to make sure casualties were kept to an acceptable level.’

Adam spluttered. ‘An
acceptable
level?
Casualties
? I think what you mean is – innocent men, women and children being murdered and mutilated.’

‘If you like,’ she replied wearily. ‘Anyway, I had another decision to make. To stop it all and lose … well, I’ll explain what in a minute. Or to let it go ahead and risk so many …’ She glanced at Adam, ‘… deaths of innocent people.’

A rapid discussion had taken place. Sierra asked if the technician could interfere with the bombs, to make them less lethal. The reply was negative. In layman’s terms, a bomb was a very straightforward beast. It either detonated with its full explosive power, or it didn’t go off at all. There was no middle ground.

So, the decision was made. It was possible to add a little chemical to the devices without Tanton being able to notice, some form of reaction neutraliser, to stop them detonating. Sierra gave the order to do so with three of the four.

‘I was warned that one bomb could still kill many people,’ she said. ‘So it was a very difficult call indeed. But I felt I had no choice.’

Adam looked about to speak, but Claire beat him to it. ‘Why?’ she said simply. ‘Why not just disable all the bombs? Why not arrest him? Why not stop the attack?’

Sierra looked at her and managed another thin smile.

‘That,’ she replied, ‘is where we come to the crux of the matter.’