He turned to go out but his way was blocked by a bearded Asian man wearing a long coat. Eddie held the door open for him. ‘After you, mate,’ he said.
The Asian didn’t seem to hear him, just pushed his way past. He smelt rancid, as if he hadn’t bathed for several days. ‘You’re welcome,’ muttered Eddie, though, having lived in London for most of his twenty-eight years, he was well used to rudeness in all its forms.
He kept hold of the door as the man joined the end of the queue. There was something wrong about him and it wasn’t just the smell. He was nervous, and seemed to have a twitch that made him flick his head to the left every few seconds. He had dark circles around his eyes as if he hadn’t slept for days. Eddie frowned but decided he had better things to do than worry about an Asian guy with mental-health issues. He was about to let go of the door when the man shouted, ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and grabbed at the arm of the woman in front of him. He fastened something metallic to the woman’s wrist, then stepped back, raising one hand in the air. ‘Stay where you are or you’ll all die!’ the man shouted.
Eddie was already running down the street, the birthday card fluttering to the pavement.
BRIXTON (10.47 a.m.)
‘Trojan Four Five One, attend Corpus Christi church in Brixton Hill. Reports of a suicide bomber.’
‘Say again, Control,’ said Baz Waterford, leaning forward to get his ear closer to the speaker. He was in the passenger seat of a high-powered BMW X5.
‘We’re getting nine-nine-nine calls from people saying that parishioners at the Corpus Christi church are being held hostage by a suicide bomber.’
Waterford looked at Bill Collins, who was driving the armed-response vehicle with the casual professionalism that came from more than a decade in the job.
‘On our way, Control,’ said Waterford. He looked at Collins. ‘Blues and twos?’
Collins grinned. ‘Probably a hoax,’ he said. ‘But if it isn’t, sirens will only spook him. Anyway, we’re five minutes away at most and the traffic’s light.’ He pressed down the accelerator and the car leaped forward.
‘A suicide bomber in a church sounds a bit unlikely,’ said Mickey Davies, from the back seat. He was a relative newcomer to the ARV team, but had already proved himself calm under pressure. All his shooting to date had been on the range but he was a first-class shot. Unlike Waterford, who was greying, and Collins, whose hair was receding by the day, Davies had a head of jet-black locks that he held in place with a smattering of gel.
‘You never know,’ said Waterford.
Collins got to the church in a little over four minutes. He brought the car to a halt close to the railings at the entrance. Immediately Davies began unpacking the three SIG Sauer 516 assault rifles. The SIG 516, with its telescoping stock and thirty-round magazine, had replaced the Heckler & Koch G36 as the Met’s assault rifle of choice.
Davies handed out the weapons and all three officers checked they were locked and loaded.
‘Right, in we go,’ said Waterford, looking up at the red-brick building with its tall spire and vaulted stained-glass windows overlooking the street. ‘Softly softly, a quick recce and that’s all. If we see anything like a suicide bomber we fall back and set up a primary and secondary perimeter.’
Waterford led the way through a gate in the railings and up the path to the entrance. Davies and Collins were either side but further back. All clicked their safeties off with the thumbs of their left hands but kept their trigger fingers outside the trigger guard.
The door to the church was closed. Waterford reached out slowly for the handle. It turned but the door wouldn’t budge. He looked at Collins. ‘Do they lock churches?’
‘It’s Brixton, they lock everything,’ said Collins. ‘But there should be a mass about this time of the day.’
Waterford pushed harder but the door wouldn’t budge. He put his ear to it but the wood was thick and he doubted he’d hear anything even if there was a choir in full song on the other side.
‘There’ll be a back entrance,’ said Collins, heading to the rear of the church, which butted onto a Catholic school. Waterford and Davies followed him, cradling their SIGs.
There was another, smaller, door at the back that led to what appeared to be an office. There were a couple of computers, a printer and shelves full of filing cabinets. One door led to a toilet and another opened into a corridor that went into the church. Waterford took the lead, with Davies and Collins spaced out behind him.
There was another door at the end of the corridor. Waterford turned the handle slowly, then pulled it towards him. He nodded at his companions, then opened the door fully. They stepped into the rear of the church. Ahead of them was the altar, and beyond that the pews. The parishioners were packed into the front two rows and most of them seemed to have their heads down as if they were praying. As Waterford moved towards them, he realised they were all holding phones. He stopped and raised his hand. Davies and Collins froze behind him.
Waterford frowned. There was no priest at the altar, and the only sound was the faint clicks as the parishioners tapped on their phones. He took a tentative step forward and froze again as he spotted the priest further back in the pews. A middle-aged Asian man was sitting next to him, his beard flecked with grey. The priest saw Waterford and stiffened. The Asian noticed the reaction and leaped to his feet. His coat fell open and Waterford saw a canvas vest with wires connecting various pockets. There was something black in the man’s right hand and the left was connected to a steel chain that snaked towards the priest.
‘It’s a suicide vest!’ hissed Davies, stating the obvious.
‘Get out!’ screamed the Asian man. ‘Get out or we’ll all die.’
Waterford couldn’t tell if he was angry or scared. ‘No problem,’ said Waterford. ‘We’re leaving. Just stay calm. We’ll get someone to come and talk to you.’ He took a quick look over his shoulder. ‘Back away, lads,’ he said. ‘We need to de-escalate this now.’
‘The ISIS prisoners must be released or we will all die here!’ shouted the man.
‘I understand,’ said Waterford. ‘Just stay calm. We’re leaving.’
He stepped back and gently closed the door.
‘Did you see that?’ said Davies. ‘That’s a bloody suicide vest he’s got on.’
Waterford ushered them down the corridor and back into the office. ‘Mickey, you need to evacuate the school now,’ he said. ‘Talk to the head teacher, get everyone out and away from the church. I’ll call it in and get you back-up.’
As Davies headed towards the school, Waterford took a deep breath as he called up the mental checklist of everything that needed to be done now that he had confirmed there was a suicide bomber on the premises. He reached up to activate the microphone by his neck. ‘Control, this is Trojan Four Five One, receiving?’
SCOTLAND YARD, VICTORIA EMBANKMENT (10.50 a.m.)
Superintendent Mo Kamran sighed as he looked at his email inbox. It was the first chance he’d had to check his email that morning and already more than a hundred messages were waiting for his attention. Some were spam, offering him cheap Viagra or a mail-order bride from Russia, but most were nonsense generated by jobsworths in the Met with nothing better to do. While the number of constables walking the beat or manning the capital’s stations had been consistently reduced over the past decades, the ranks of office workers in health and safety, racial awareness, equality and human resources had swelled to the point where the majority of Met staff had never even seen a criminal up close. The rot had set in at about the time that the Metropolitan Police had started to refer to itself as a service, rather than a force, and the public as customers, rather than villains and victims. Kamran had been a police officer for twenty years and a superintendent for two. As part of the promotion he had been moved away from what he saw as real policing — latterly on the Gangs and Organised Crime Unit — to an office job that he frankly hated. He was running Emergency Preparedness within the Special Crime and Operations branch, and most of his time was spent dealing with the London Emergency Services Liaison Panel. LESLP met every three months and consisted of representatives from the Met, the London Fire Brigade, the City of London Police, the British Transport Police, the London Ambulance Service, the Coastguard, the Port of London Authority and representatives from the city’s local authorities.