“Okay Rusty” replied Colin “Athena and her parents will be on their way home to Belgravia by then I guess. It’ll take me less than ten minutes to get to you from Harley Street. See you later mate.”
In fact Irfan, Arshad and Karim were already on Oxford Street.
They had left Milton Keynes at just after eight o’clock. First there was a thirty five minute journey to Euston; there they mingled with other people on the station who didn’t seem to be in a rush to get somewhere. They had time on their side. Three young men dressed in casual western clothes; blue jeans, trainers and the ubiquitous hoodie. Even the rucksacks slung on their backs didn’t attract that much attention. Eventually, they drifted towards the tube line for their next stop, Victoria.
The same pattern followed; a casual stroll around the old station visiting several of the shops, just browsing. When Irfan indicated it was time to move on they made their way onwards via Warren Street to Oxford Circus. There was plenty to see there too and hundreds of people to share the experience with.
When Colin ended his phone call with Rusty the three young men were leaving the station and were beginning to wander up and down Oxford Street West. Colin continued to make his way to Harley Street to keep watch; he couldn’t help being distracted by thoughts of what lay ahead of him this afternoon.
CHAPTER 20
Erebus was pacing up and down in the drawing room. He was impatient and nervous in equal measure. He had nine well trained men on their way to Oxford Circus station. He had the paramedics travelling there too as back up; what else could he do? Would they prevent a tragedy or would some of his people be caught up in the suicide attack? His mind was in turmoil. Had he made the right decision?
Thanatos watched his boss and reflected on the past couple of hours. Suddenly he thumped the table with his fist. Erebus stopped pacing and turned sharply towards him.
“What is it Thanatos?” he asked.
“I think we’ve missed something” Thanatos replied “the message from Pakistan threw us off the scent.”
“Go on” said Erebus, sitting back down at the table.
“Well, look at it; it reads ‘Meet at Oxford Circus. Today at 1.30pm.’ The bombers are travelling together, so they won’t ‘meet’ each other will they? The message arrived early this morning from Pakistan, so if a fourth person was meeting them, they couldn’t get there in time for lunchtime today. The logical answer is that the fourth person is already here.
The surveillance section needs to track the details of traffic between the UK and the Pakistani link over the past twenty four hours or so to find the outgoing version of the message. It may be coded or in a cryptic form.”
Erebus nodded towards Alastor. He left the room immediately to start the hunt.
“When they were watching the maisonette in Milton Keynes there were several youngsters seen coming and going” said Erebus “we need their details, and especially any photographs we have of them. We must get this information to Rusty’s team and the guys travelling in from MK as soon as possible. Time is of the essence!”
Thanatos continued to outline his idea.
“The next thing we need to consider is what role would any additional players fulfil on this mission? We know the young men contacted at the property were the bomb carriers. Therefore, it’s logical to assume that the fourth man will detonate the bombs remotely. What the bombers are carrying, probably in rucksacks on their backs, are improvised explosive devices with nuts and bolts, a cheap cell phone, electrical wire, a fuse, batteries, electrical tape and a solid-state semiconductor device. This last piece lets you wire into the cell phone speaker; the speaker phone has more power going to it and is more commonly used when putting together an IED like this. When the phone is called, it activates the ringer, which makes the connection between those two components and kicks off the signal to detonate the explosive. This fourth person could be some distance away; however, if I’m right he or she also plans to be inside Oxford Circus station. It is such a busy thoroughfare and there are loads of potential exits. My guess would be they intend to wait until the bomb carriers are at the optimum points to cause the maximum damage, spread across the site. All the bombs will be triggered simultaneously. It will be carnage.”
The others listened quietly to Thanatos and his grim predictions of the scenario unfolding one hundred miles away in London. Alastor had returned to the meeting and heard his colleague’s gloomy prediction.
“Do we have the capability to shut down the cell service in the area?” he asked.
Erebus shook his head “Not practical old chap.”
“What about using those jamming devices you used in the military? They might at least disrupt the signal to some of the phones and reduce the effects” posed Minos.
“We haven’t got time to mobilise them” said Thanatos “if we had rumbled the true meaning of the message earlier we could have maybe used the lightweight signal jammers we have in stores; but they only have a maximum range of fifteen metres. Fine for our guys masking mobile traffic out in the field back to us here at HQ, but in this situation the agents would have to be too up close and personal for their own safety.”
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing” said Erebus “we must concentrate our attentions on finding the bombers and the other possible players; then we need to isolate them and neutralise their effectiveness before we reach zero hour. Get me photos and identities of all the people who used the maisonette in MK now! Get the surveillance boys to hack into the CCTV cameras on Oxford Street; I need to know where these people are so we can inform the teams on site.”
There was a knock on the door. It was one of the surveillance team.
“Perfect timing!” said Erebus “What have you got for us?”
“We’ve found the outgoing message sir; it was too nondescript to get picked up initially. It was sent from Leicester on Wednesday and read ‘Tell them we’re fine for a late lunch tomorrow as planned.”
Erebus told Alastor to go back to the ice house with the operator and start digging for the data he required. He turned to Thanatos and Minos.
“I wish Athena was here! I know she’s in Harley Street as we speak, but I’d be a lot happier knowing that Phoenix was watching over her; he’ll be abandoning that duty and moving across to assist Rusty and the team.”
Thanatos had expected as much; the boss was very protective of his second in command. He had also given some thought to the outgoing message and its implications.
“That message confirms my suspicions” he said with a sigh “the other members of the cell will be in the station too. The sooner we know what they look like and locate them the better. The odds are stacked against us, but while we still have a chance then we must remain hopeful.”
Minos asked whether they should tip off the TFL authorities so that the station could be evacuated. Erebus wasn’t happy about going down that road because it risked showing their hand and keeping the Olympus Project under the radar was paramount. The pros and cons of the situation were discussed and anguished over while they waited for news.
Alastor returned to the drawing room with a folder and a brief smile.
“The people we had watching the maisonette were thorough; we have excellent photos of five young people. They have been identified as follows:
— Irfan Baqri, 20, student; born and raised in Birmingham
— Karim Rivzi, 20, student; born and raised in Nottingham
— Arshad Usman, 19, student; born and raised in Leicester