First Response
Authors: Stephen Leather
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Spies & Politics, #Assassinations, #Thriller, #Thrillers
Pay Off
The Fireman
Hungry Ghost
The Chinaman
The Vets
The Long Shot
The Birthday Girl
The Double Tap
The Solitary Man
The Tunnel Rats
The Bombmaker
The Stretch
Tango One
The Eyewitness
Spider Shepherd thrillers
Hard Landing
Soft Target
Cold Kill
Hot Blood
Dead Men
Live Fire
Rough Justice
Fair Game
False Friends
True Colours
White Lies
Black Ops
Jack Nightingale supernatural thrillers
Nightfall
Midnight
Nightmare
Nightshade
Lastnight
Stephen Leather is one of the UK’s most successful thriller writers, an ebook and
Sunday Times
bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers including
The Times
, the
Daily Mirror
, the
Daily Mail
and the
South China Morning Post
in Hong Kong. Stephen’s titles have topped the Amazon Kindle charts in the UK and the US and his bestsellers have been translated into fifteen languages. He has also written for television.
Visit Stephen’s website,
www.stephenleather.com
, find him on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/stephenleather
.
Stephen also has a website for his Spider Shepherd series,
www.danspidershepherd.com
, and for his Jack Nightingale series,
www.jacknightingale.com
.
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Stephen Leather 2016
The right of Stephen Leather to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Ebook ISBN 978 1 473 60456 8
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
Contents
Scotland Yard, Victoria Embankment (10.50 a.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (11.15 a.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (11.45 a.m.)
Marylebone High Street (11.52 a.m.)
Wellington Barracks (12.02 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (12.05 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (12.10 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (12.15 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (12.18 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (12.25 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (12.30 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (12.34 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (12.40 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (12.51 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (12.56 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (1.30 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (2.00 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (2.10 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (2.30 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (3 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (3.04 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (3.10 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (3.20 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (3.40 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (3.50 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (3.52 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (3.54 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (3.56 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (4.10 p.m.)
Biggin Hill Airport (4.20 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (4.30 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (4.40 p.m.)
Biggin Hill Airport (4.43 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (5.05 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (5.12 p.m.)
Biggin Hill Airport (5.20 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (5.23 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (5.27 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (5.34 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (5.45 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (5.55 p.m.)
South London (ten hours earlier)
South London (ten hours earlier)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (6.47 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (7.07 p.m.)
Biggin Hill Airport (7.09 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (7.10 p.m.)
Biggin Hill Airport (7.12 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (7.13 p.m.)
Biggin Hill Airport (7.14 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (7.16 p.m.)
Biggin Hill Airport (7.18 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (7.25 p.m.)
Biggin Hill Airport (7.26 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (7.27 p.m.)
Biggin Hill Airport (7.30 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (7.32 p.m.)
Biggin Hill Airport (7.40 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (8.30 p.m.)
Interview With Rabeel Bhashir (8.40 p.m.)
Interview With Ali Pasha (8.50 p.m.)
Interview With Zach Ahmed (9.00 p.m.)
Interview With Ismail Hussain (9.15 p.m.)
Interview With Mohammed Sami Malik (9.30 p.m.)
Interview With Faisal Chaudhry (9.45 p.m.)
Interview With Tariq Masood (10.00 p.m.)
Interview With Mohamed Osman (10.20 p.m.)
Lambeth Central Communications Command Centre (10.45 p.m.)
Scotland Yard, Victoria Embankment (the next day)
Scotland Yard, Victoria Embankment
King’s Cross (7 July 2005, 8.40 a.m.)
Piccadilly Line (7 July 2005, 8.50 a.m.)
cleanskin
n.
- an unbranded animal;
- a terrorist with no obvious links to terrorist groups, and who therefore does not appear on any watch lists.
S
arah Khan sat down in the last free seat in the carriage and took a deep breath. She looked at her watch. She had plenty of time before her interview. She never enjoyed interviews, probably because she didn’t like being judged. They would look at her and ask probing questions and on the basis of that would decide whether or not she was suitable to work for them. If she said the wrong thing, if she made a joke that was taken the wrong way, her CPS career would be dead before it had even started.
Sarah knew she had a tendency to be flippant when she was nervous. It was a defence mechanism, an attempt to defuse a moment of tension. She was going to have to be careful, but not too careful because her interviewers might mistake hesitance for duplicity. She knew that she had to smile, but not smile too much. She had to maintain eye contact but not stare. She closed her eyes and tried to think calm thoughts.
She had spent the last week running through every possible question she might be asked. Why the CPS? Why not join one of the big law firms? Why criminal and not corporate? How would she cope with the long hours, the stress, the responsibility? She had all her answers prepared. She wanted to make a difference. She wanted to make her city a safer place to live. She wanted to protect its citizens. She wanted to be a superhero. She smiled to herself and opened her eyes. Maybe that was going too far. But she had never spent all those hours studying law to spend her time in a corporate environment helping to make rich people richer.