‘This is us,’ she said, indicating a white florist’s van. Jackson Rose and the young man with the attempted beard and the shotgun were among those climbing into the back. There was a faded slogan on the side of the van.
‘BEAUTIFUL’ BLOOMS OF BARKING
DS Stone laughed. She really was unnaturally calm.
She held two PASGT helmets in one hand. She handed one to me. I strapped it on.
‘I love those inverted commas around “beautiful”, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Why do they do that?’
Then she saw that I was not laughing.
‘What’s the problem, Detective?’ she said.
I nodded as I put on the PASGT, tightening the strap of the combat helmet.
‘We’re using a florist’s delivery van for the entry team?’ I shook my head. ‘As I understand it, Borodino Street is in a very devout and poor neighbourhood. I wonder how many fancy bouquets of flowers get delivered to this neck of the woods.’ I indicated the van. ‘From Beautiful Blooms of Barking or anyone else.’
The car park was in the basement of Leman Street Police Station but you could see the first light of a beautiful summer’s day creeping into the entrance.
DS Stone was not laughing now. I watched her put on her PASGT helmet. She shrugged her shoulders, getting comfortable in the body armour as she held her assault rifle at a 45-degree angle, the business end pointing at the floor. The car park was filling with the fumes of all those engines. Then she smiled at me and it made me think that maybe I would like to sit next to her at breakfast.
‘We will be in and out before anyone gets a chance to wonder where the roses are,’ she said. ‘OK, Max?’
But it didn’t go down like that.
3
The back of the florist’s van smelled of old sweat and fresh gun oil.
The SFOs crammed inside were at home inside the restricted space. We call them a Tactical Support Team. They call themselves shots. I suspected that this wasn’t the first time these shots had used this van.
DS Alice Stone stood at the back doors, deftly shifting her weight to remain standing as we sped through the empty streets. The other nine SFOs in her team sat opposite each other on low benches, most of them giving their kit and weapons one final check. Jackson Rose sat there almost meditative, staring at nothing. The boy with the wispy beard – Jesse Tibbs, it said on his name tag – adjusted the position of the shotgun between his legs. He glared when he saw me watching him. In the front of the van were a driver and a radio dispatcher in the passenger’s seat, both in plain clothes.
‘Five minutes,’ the driver called over his shoulder.
DS Stone spoke into the radio attached to her left lapel.
‘All calls, this is Red One – ETA for entry team is five minutes,’ she said, raising her voice above the engine, but still professionally calm.
It was two miles from Leman Street Police Station to the target address on Borodino Street, a quiet residential road not far from Victoria Park.
Close to the back doors I crouched by a monitor relaying live images from the camera hidden in the roof of the van. The screen was black-and-white and split into the nine live CCTV images giving a 360-degree view of the outside. There were also two spyholes drilled into either side of the van.
It was not quite 5 a.m. Still one hour to sunrise. The city still washed in that half-light that precedes true dawn.
The streets looked empty. But the constant radio traffic coming from the front of the van told a different story.
These streets were teeming with our people.
The radio dispatcher in the passenger seat kept up a constant stream of communication. On the monitor I saw a line of Armed Response Vehicles parked just beyond Leman Street and as we got closer to the target address I saw vans of uniformed officers in riot gear, their stacks of ballistic shields by the vehicle making them look like a medieval army, parked up next to smaller vans of dog handlers with firearms and explosives search dogs.
And ambulances. We passed an entire convoy of ambulances in a derelict petrol station, waiting for disaster.
As we got closer to Borodino Street, there were undercover surveillance officers in observation posts, scattered across the neighbourhood – I saw a British Gas tent and two Thames Water vans that had nothing to do with gas and water.
There was a second response team on standby, a back-up Tactical Support Team of shots parked up a block away from the target address. Just one street away, an armoured Land Rover was double-parked, its big diesel engine idling. A helicopter whirred in the milky sky of early morning.
On Borodino Street itself, there were dark shadows on the rooftops – the snipers in their elevated close containment positions, the Heckler & Koch G36 carbines black matchsticks against the slowly shifting sky.
‘It’s like Piccadilly Circus out there this morning!’ Stone smiled, and her team laughed with wild relief.
We were an army.
But someone has to go in.
‘You OK, Raymond?’ DS Stone said.
She was addressing the shot who was sitting between Jackson Rose and Jesse Tibbs with his shotgun. This Raymond nodded, too quickly, his face shining with sweat as he again checked his weapon. He looked supremely fit but older than the other shots, as though he had lived some other life before this one. Maybe another ex-serviceman, I thought.
‘One pass,’ DS Stone called to the driver.
‘Copy that, ma’am,’ he called back.
We turned into Borodino Street.
DS Stone crouched by my side, steadying herself with a hand on my shoulder as she stared at the monitor.
The florist’s van passed the house without slowing down.
One screen out of nine showed the front of the house.
There was no sign of movement.
I could feel Stone’s wound-tight anticipation as she stood up and leaned against the back doors. She quickly checked the spyhole.
A female voice came from the radio on her lapel. It was DCS Elizabeth Swire, the Designated Senior Officer running the show from New Scotland Yard. All other radio chatter was suddenly silenced.
‘Red One, can we have your sit-rep, please?’ DCS Swire said.
‘No movement at the target address, ma’am,’ replied Stone. ‘Red One requesting permission for attack run.’
A pause. We waited. All of the shots stared at their leader.
‘Red One awaiting instructions,’ DS Stone said calmly.
‘Permission granted,’ came the response. ‘Proceed with attack run.’
Stone gave her team the nod.
‘We’re going in,’ she said calmly. ‘Standby.’
The van had turned right at the end of the street, and now it made another right and then turned right again.
No one was checking their kit now. They all waited, their eyes on their team leader as Stone picked up her Sig Sauer MCX assault rifle. I stared at the monitor, aware that I had stopped blinking. The monitor told me nothing.
‘All calls, entry team is in final assault position,’ DS Stone said above me.
All eyes were on her. The van slowed but did not quite stop.
‘Remember your training, look after each other and watch out for those grenades,’ she said.
She hefted her assault rifle.
‘On my command,’ she said.
There was a moment when we did not breathe.
‘Go!’ Stone said. ‘Go! Go! Go!’
‘Wait,’ I said.
The front door was opening.
It was happening very slowly.
Whoever was leaving the house was taking their time.
DS Stone was kneeling by my side.
‘Someone’s coming out,’ she said into her radio.
A beat.
Our van was crawling now.
‘Establish ID and hold,’ said DCS Swire.
A large woman in a black niqab was shuffling from the house. She adjusted her headscarf as she turned to the street, only her eyes showing above the veil.