He was not paid to make decisions, just pass on what information was submitted and let others make those decisions. He was, however, able to submit his thoughts on the informant and the value of the information:
Omar Khan (54) an Asian male of Pakistani origins attended Ealing Police station to report he suspected his daughter’s boyfriend – Ben Gomez 24, as being an Al-qaeda subversive. He was unsure as to the actual origins of Mr Gomez. He believes he might well be from somewhere in the Middle East. His daughter, Shamin Khan, aged 24, is a psychologist working at Hillingdon Hospital. Mr Gomez works for Tescos. The couple reside in the premises listed in the Uxbridge Road, Hayes. PNC reveals no trace of convictions for Mr Gomez; he has not had contact with police. Mr Khan admits he wanted his daughter to submit to an arranged marriage, and sent her to Pakistan to receive an education and in the hope she would come round to his way of thinking. It appears she met Mr Gomez since returning to the UK. He stated that Mr Gomez claimed to be an Islamic activist and threatened him. When asked why he should threaten him, Mr Khan admitted he offered a considerable sum of money to Mr Gomez to leave his daughter. Suspected domestic disagreement.
The details were passed through the intelligence system, and were marked ‘not urgent’ and were subsequently buried under a mountain of similar reports on the desk of a team at MI5.
A young clerk called Rachel, whose job it was to log all reports, sat at her computer and entered the details into the system and filed the report in a cardboard box that was taken to the basement archives.
A few days later, the computer spat out the name – Ben Gomez. Michael Lawrence, one of the team looking at Islamic terror suspects, picked up the name, and started making routine enquiries with the Border Agency and immigration intelligence officers. He certainly didn’t expect to find anything, but was surprised to find nothing at all. This might sound odd, but Ben Gomez didn’t exist.
Although Border Agency had his passport on file entering the country, coincidentally on the same day and time as one Shamin Khan, checks with the Portuguese passport office revealed that this passport was not one they issued.
Alarm bells rang, only perhaps not as loudly or as soon as they should have done.
Eighteen
Shannon’s behaviour was very unusual. For a start, she was quiet, so that drew attention to her straight away. Secondly, she barely allowed Keira out of her sight, so, as the two girls were neither in the same year, nor sharing any classes, this was proving a problem for her.
Keira believed that she was the only one to notice, but she had not taken the experience and observation skills of Mrs Doreen Lambert into consideration. Friendship was one thing, but Mrs Lambert was beginning to wonder whether these girls were on the verge of forming an unnatural relationship. It wouldn’t be the first time, and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last. However, from what she had seen in the past, these two did not display the tell-tale signs that she normally observed.
However, the girls had work to do, lessons to go to and sports to play. They did not get that many chances to discuss what they had seen, or what they could do about it. Keira slightly regretted telling Shannon, but was the first to admit that being alone in situations like these wasn’t helpful. She needed someone else to bounce ideas off, and, hopefully, have someone watching her back. The problem was that Shannon was not liable to do as she was told; which she proved only so well on the previous night.
Keira became aware that Mrs Lambert was watching her a little more closely than before, so she was able to warn Shannon to cool things and to back off.
It was three nights later that Shannon crept along the corridor at three in the morning to knock on Keira’s door.
“What are you doing?” Keira hissed at her friend.
“Look, we have to do something; they could be blowing up big shit with that stuff.”
“No, I’ll do something, what you can do is call it in to the police.”
“Me, the police? You have to be kidding?”
“We have to get the information to someone. This is too big for just us.”
“Just what is too big for you?” asked a frighteningly familiar voice. “And just what is so serious as to warrant the police to be notified?”
Keira’s heart sank, as she realised that the Lambster was far more astute than anyone gave her credit. Shannon gave a little shriek.
“Mrs Lambert, I can explain,” Keira said, trying to work out what she could say.
Mrs Lambert looked at her.
“I’m sure you can, Keira, but try to make it the truth, there’s a good girl.”
“The truth?” Keira said, smiling slightly. “Are you sure?”
That response was not what Mrs Lambert expected.
“Of course.”
Keira took a deep breath and quietly considered exactly what she should and should not say, while Shannon was making very strange gesticulations behind the head-teacher’s back.
“We think we’ve discovered a possible terrorist bomb-making plot,” she said.
Shannon groaned and whacked her forehead with the palm of her hand before she realised exactly what her friend had said.
Mrs Lambert looked non-judgemental, but possessed a definite ‘I’m listening, but I want more’ expression.
To be fair, Keira held back, as she did not want to mention her abilities. When she finished, she didn’t feel that Mrs Lambert was convinced she had just had the truth.
“You leave me with more questions than answers, Keira. For a start, how did you get to these woods?”
“We walked.”
“In just a few minutes?”
“Okay, it might have taken us longer than I mentioned. We were talking so didn’t really take any notice of the time.”
“How do you know about Ammonium Nitrate?”
“At my last school, I did a project of chemicals that had perfectly normal industrial uses as well as potentially dangerous uses by terrorist or criminal organisations. I was that kind of geek.”
Mrs Lambert regarded her sternly for a moment or two. Keira didn’t flinch or break eye contact.
“What were you going to do?”
“I did some checking and that confirmed my suspicions. We were going to contact the police, but didn’t want the school involved.”
“And just how were you going to do that?”
“We were going to go to the village and use the phone box there,” Shannon said, grinning conspiratorially at her friend.
Mrs Lambert looked from one to the other several times.
“Your story is certainly not what I expected, that is for sure. However, I am afraid that some aspects of your story just do not hold water. The woods you are talking about are over five miles away. For you to take ‘just a few minutes’ to get there and back is, quite honestly, ridiculous. Secondly, how could you see a van from all the way over here?”
Keira looked down and said something that Mrs Lambert didn’t hear.
“Speak up girl!”
“I’m not like other girls!” Keira said, quite a bit louder than she meant to.
It wasn’t as if she was bragging, but it was a simple statement of fact that alarmed Mrs Lambert. Had Keira been bragging, then she might not have been alarmed at all, but it was the clinical manner in which she said it.
“Would you care to expand?”
“Not really.”
That surprised Mrs Lambert.
“And why not, pray?”
“Once you realise how different I am, then everything about me is in jeopardy.”
Mrs Lambert’s eyebrows rose at that one.
“Child, I think you do me an injustice. I am hardly likely to be that surprised at anything you can claim.”
Mrs Lambert couldn’t have said anything less truthful, as she discovered when Keira claimed nothing. She simply floated from the floor and rose to the ceiling.
She looked down at her head-teacher with a calm and rather solemn expression. Shannon closed her eyes and was praying to anyone and anything that might happen to be listening.