The man, when he arrived was a nondescript fellow, of average height and owning a weasel-like face, with a sharp nose and prominent teeth. He also had bad-breath. He carried a brief case and a small suitcase. He handed the suitcase to Ben.
He said his name was Ali, but no one cared. He was Lebanese, but had not been home for many years. He had left as a young man when the fighting had been very bad with Syria and Israel and all the various factions fighting for supremacy in the eighties.
He had gone to Libya, trained at one of the many Islamic training camps, and learned all about bomb-making from an Irishman who was hiding over there for a few years after a large bomb had killed many people in England.
Ali had learned English from this man, so still spoke with a pronounced Belfast accent.
“I have arranged a bedsit for you in Uxbridge. There will be no worries, as the landlord has been paid up front for a month,” said Ben.
They travelled in Shamin’s car; a Ford Fiesta. Ali had never been to England before, so was like a tourist while they drove out of London. It was all so ordered and very much cleaner than the places he had stayed in. The cars were all in good condition, and the traffic moved well, despite being so much of it. He couldn’t understand what was missing for ages, and then he realised that no horns were sounding. The drivers were all behaving so much better than those in Pakistan.
“You have the chemicals?”
“Yes. At a safe place.”
“In a town?”
“No, as per the instructions, I have found an isolated, rural place to keep them.”
“Good. I will need a van. We can take the van, collect the fuel oil and sugar and then go to the chemicals and I will build it there.”
“You have the detonator?”
He smiled and patted his briefcase.
“You have a target?”
Ben looked at Shamin, who smiled and nodded.
“Oh, yes, I have found a target.”
The assembly room was full, so as Mrs Lambert took to the stage, the noise level dropped. The girls looked at the rather portly, sweaty man with Mrs Lambert.
“Girls, this is Mr Porter, from the Chiltern Ornithological Society. At very short notice, he has very kindly agreed to deliver today’s illustrated lecture on the Red Kite and its remarkable come-back in these isles. He has agreed for a select few to accompany him to one of their hides in some nearby woods to watch the pairs as they come in for the evening to roost.”
The lecture was, as could have been predicted; despairingly dull, if you didn’t happen to be an aficionado of the Red Kite. For the fifty-six girls seated listening and watching the movie, precisely nil were interested. Two, however, at least made an effort to look interested, as Keira and Shannon were angling to be on the bus trip to the woods.
The lecture ran on for an hour, after which questions were encouraged from the semi-comatose girls. The lucky Mr Porter was allowed to take tea in the staff room, with the jolly enthusiastic members of staff, who had (some of them) actually enjoyed the lecture. After tea, those girls who wanted to go were asked to congregate by the school bus in casual walking gear.
Five members of staff (including Mrs Lambert) rolled up to be met by twelve girls and the stalwart Mr Porter.
“Is this all?” asked Mrs Lambert, hardly surprised to see just ten other girls with Keira and Shannon.
“Far better a few who are enthusiastic than many who aren’t,” said Mr Porter jovially.
The plan, or rather, Mrs Lambert’s plan was for them to accidentally find the terrorist’s stash of chemicals. This would initiate a call to the authorities, who would probably want to start a surveillance operation to catch those responsible, and so leave the college free from all connection other than just the accidental discovery.
The problem with finely made plans, as they were to discover, is that things happen to completely screw them up.
Mr Porter took them to the right woods, and indeed, to the exact spot where they’d found the stash of chemicals just the previous night.
Only instead of a hidden pit was an empty hole in the ground. The chemicals had been moved.
Keira recalled that just as the bus approached the gateway, a scruffy van had passed them on the road. She hadn’t thought about it, but now put two and two together.
“Oh dear!” said Mrs Lambert. Despite arranging things as quickly as she could, it hadn’t been fast enough.
“Distract them!” Keira said, and set off down the lane at a run.
“How?” bleated Mrs Lambert, finally stumped.
Shannon shrugged and managed to fall into the pit, thereby distracting everyone for the time that Keira needed.
Dressed in trainers, a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, she did not feel ready for this.
She started bounding as soon as she left the woods, but the van could be anywhere now. Taking a risk, she jumped high, and tried to use altitude to see where the van was.
She had a reasonable sense of location and direction, so only guessed that terrorists might well make for a centre of civilisation, like London, rather than some fields and woods. There was only one way to London from here, and that was the busy A road that ran close to the college.
Sure enough, there was the van, in a queue of traffic at the roundabout waiting to get onto the A413.
But what the hell was she going to do now?
She landed in a field close to the road, and saw only that two people were in the front of the van. It was the same van as the other night, so she could not see if anyone was in the back. It was slow, so she imagined that it was full.
The van entered the main road and headed towards London. Taking a risk, Keira bounded ahead of the van, so that she was able to reach where the A413 met the A40 close to where her uncle and aunt lived at Denham. The problem was that there were loads of people about, and she really did not want to be seen flying by anyone.
Superman and all the others never had this problem. There was a van with a big lump of explosive stuff on board. She had no way of knowing whether it was already a bomb, or they were moving it so they could make it into a bomb. She didn’t even know who was in the van. She heard two people the other night, but she would never be able to identify them from their voices. The woman was called Shamin; that was all she could remember.
Then she remembered the number plate.
Taking out her mobile, she dialled 999.
“Emergency, which service do you require?”
“Police please,” she said, amazingly calm.
She heard the operator contact the police control and then tell the police operator her mobile number.
“Police, what’s the nature of your call?”
“Hello, yes, this might seem a bit odd, but I’ve just seen a van with two huge containers of ammonium nitrate in the back. It was weird because for some reason this stuff was being stored in a pit in the woods near my college.”
The operator suddenly took her seriously.
“What’s your name?”
“Keira Frost.”
“Where are you, Keira?”
“I’m following the van,” she lied. “A friend gave me a lift.”
“Where is the van now?”
“On the A413 approaching the A40 at Gerrards Cross, heading towards London. There are at least two people in the van that I can see. I think they’re Asian or Middle Eastern.”
“Tell me about the chemicals?”
“They were in two big yellow drums. They had ammonium nitrate on the labels. I remember that from science. It’s fertiliser that the IRA used to make bombs with, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Where was it?”
“They had hidden them under a plywood cover in a pit in the woods near our college. We went bird watching a few nights ago and found them there. We took our teacher back today and were going to show her when we saw the van leaving the woods.”
“Do you still have sight of the van?”
“Yes,” she lied.
“What’s the number?”
She told him.