‘It must have been Shahid. I told Edwards to minimise contact.’
‘It’s Shahid moving to maintain control,’ said Thatcher, coming up behind them. ‘He tells his man to release hostages, and you have to acknowledge that he’s in charge. And the fact he did it before hearing whether or not his demands have been agreed to is significant. It’s an ego thing. And that could be a weakness. I think Shahid has something to prove and he didn’t like it when you took the initiative.’
‘You think we should make contact with the other bombers?’ asked Kamran.
‘I think that might be unproductive,’ said Thatcher. ‘He might see it as a challenge to his authority. The first time it worked and hostages were released. He might not be so accommodating next time.’
‘So that leaves us with Mo’s plan,’ said Gillard. ‘Get the bombers isolated with the minimum number of hostages. Where’s Tony Drury? We need an EOD expert on this.’
‘He’s over at the SCO19 desk,’ said Sergeant Lumley. ‘I’ll get him.’
Gillard turned to Murray. ‘What do you think, Alex? If we can get the go-ahead to isolate them at the airport, could your men handle it? I don’t see it being resolved peacefully so it might be best if your men were there.’
‘To do the dirty work, you mean?’ The SAS captain grimaced and waved an apology. ‘Sorry, that came out wrong. Yes, of course, if this turns into a shoot-out then our guys are better equipped to deal with it. Your armed cops bend over backwards not to fire their weapons whereas we’re trained to keep shooting until the problem is neutralised. There’s another Chinook en route from Hereford as we speak. It could easily be diverted to Biggin Hill.’
‘Do that now so we’re ahead of the game,’ said Gillard. ‘I don’t want to be chasing up resources closer to the deadline. We’ve only got two hours as it is.’
Murray took out his radio and moved to the far end of the suite as Lumley returned with Drury. ‘Tony, we need to pick your brains,’ said the chief superintendent.
Drury leant against a desk and folded his arms. ‘Pick away.’
‘We’re thinking of isolating the bombers on a coach, driving them to Biggin Hill airport and placing them in an isolated building, like a hangar. It’ll minimise the number of hostages and confine any damage. It also means that whatever happens will happen away from the public eye. So my first question would be, what if just one of the bombs detonates. Will they all go off?’
Drury nodded. ‘In close proximity like a coach, almost definitely. I suppose it’s possible that if it was right at the front or at the back it might be confined to a single explosion, but even then… A lot would depend on the type of explosive, and we still don’t have intel on that. But even if it was super stable like C-4, one device going off a few feet away is almost certainly going to detonate the ones closest to it. And you’d get a ripple effect.’
‘And presumably that would be unsurvivable.’
‘You remember what happened to the bus on Seven/Seven,’ said Drury. ‘That was just one device. It blew the roof clean off and killed a lot of people. You’d get nine times that.’ He scratched his ear thoughtfully. ‘Actually, that’s not, strictly speaking, true,’ he said. ‘The whole would actually be less than the sum of the parts, because you would get some cancellation effects. You’d have opposing forces meeting with the bus, and you’d have shrapnel smacking into other shrapnel thus absorbing some of the force. But that’s purely technical and would make sod all difference to anyone on the coach.’
‘And outside it?’
‘As in the Seven/Seven bus bombing, most of the blast would be directed upwards. The bodies and the sides of the coach would absorb a lot of the sideways blast and shrapnel but the roof is generally just thin metal. You’d have a problem with flying glass, of course.’
‘Can we minimise that?’
‘The glass? Sure. We could fit anti-blast film. Maybe reinforce the sides of the coach with ballistic panels.’
Gillard looked up at the clock again. ‘We might have time to fit anti-blast film but not much else,’ he said.
Murray walked back over, putting his transceiver away. ‘The Chinook’s being diverted,’ he said. ‘Should arrive at Biggin Hill in about twenty minutes. What was that about anti-blast film?’
‘We’re looking at ways of minimising the damage if the bombs should detonate on the coach.’
‘Makes sense, but you need to be aware that if we do have to fire, we’ll be firing through the windows, obviously. Anti-blast film generally isn’t bulletproof but it’ll make it that much harder.’
Gillard turned to Drury and the EOD expert nodded. ‘He’s right.’
‘If we shoot and don’t kill, there’s a good chance they’ll detonate immediately,’ said Murray.
‘But the problem there is that if one goes off they all go off,’ said Gillard. ‘In which case we need to minimise the glass that’s flying around.’
‘We can make sure that our men are protected,’ said Murray. ‘We’ll have time. Personally I’d rather leave us with the option of shooting through the glass.’
Drury shrugged. ‘Six of one, half a dozen of the other,’ he said. ‘This is all uncharted territory. But as far as flying glass goes, yes, that’ll all be outward so if your guys can protect themselves it shouldn’t be a problem.’
‘What about the driver?’ asked Gillard. ‘Alex is going to come up with a volunteer but we’d like to protect him as much as possible.’
‘If we can get a coach to Drummond Crescent we could see about fitting ballistic panels to the driver’s seat,’ said Drury.
Gillard looked over at Lumley. ‘Can you get the coach sorted, Sergeant? The smaller the vehicle, the better.’
‘I’m on it, sir,’ said Lumley, picking up his phone.
It had just passed four o’clock, Gillard saw. ‘We need to talk to the prime minister now, JIC meeting or no JIC meeting.’
‘I can probably get my boss to interrupt it,’ said Waterman.
‘Please, Lynne,’ said the chief superintendent. ‘We need to talk with him now.’
MARYLEBONE (4.06 p.m.)
The Sky News presenter was a young Asian woman with too much make-up. Faisal Chaudhry shook his head in disgust. She was a Muslim by the look of her, so why wasn’t she covering her head? The only reason he was looking at her was because he wanted to know what was happening around London. According to the woman, three hostages had just been released from the Southside shopping centre in Wandsworth. The picture then cut to a shot of the childcare centre in Kensington where a group of small children had been let go earlier.
‘Does this mean you’re letting us go?’ asked the man that Chaudhry had handcuffed himself to.
Chaudhry shook his head. ‘No one’s going to be allowed out until the prisoners are released from Belmarsh.’
‘What’s so important about them?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Chaudhry.
The man frowned. ‘Why don’t you know? You’re doing all this and you don’t know why they’re important?’
‘Just shut up,’ said Chaudhry. He glared at the staff and customers, who were all sitting on the floor by the toilets. ‘And you lot, keep texting. Hashtag ISIS6. Tell everyone that if the six prisoners aren’t released, this pub will be destroyed with everyone in it.’
‘What’s your name? I’m Kenny.’
‘Faisal.’
‘You’re Al-Qaeda, right?’
‘I’m a Muslim.’
Kenny nodded. ‘My girlfriend’s a Muslim.’
‘Like fuck she is,’ spat Faisal.