Intercept (23 page)

The second great puzzle that faced him was, why were the Chosen Ones expected up at the rocks at 9:30? He had made no arrangements to rendezvous, and they would have no reason to go there without at least informing him. Which meant the police, or the army, was taking them up there to murder them, to rid the Western world of the problem, and then deny all evidence of wrong-doing. Sheikh Abdullah knew that governments were good at that, especially the Americans, the Great Satan.

Therefore he had but one task this day: to prevent the Chosen Ones being taken up to Ilkley Moor. But, short of blowing up the police station and probably killing everyone in it, including the Chosen Ones, he had no ideas on how to proceed.

Except for one.

 

ACROSS THE YORKSHIRE BORDER
in Lancashire, deep in the northern suburbs of Manchester, lies the heavily Muslim-populated Cheetham Hill. And right there, on Cheetham Hill Road, lived Dr. Ahmed Kamil, a forty-year-old somewhat shadowy figure, known to be involved in a labyrinth of legal actions involving terrorists, but never a man to take center stage in a trial.

Dr. Kamil had a doctorate in law from the University of Cairo. He practiced in the UK as a consultant and advisor, not an advocate. His business was entirely terrorism, but he had never even taken the final exams that would permit him to speak in even a Crown Court, far less the High Court where terrorists tend to wind up.

Born in Pakistan and a familiar figure in major police headquarters all over the north of England, Ahmed Kamil operated from an elegant suite of offices in Manchester’s Deansgate—a relatively snazzy address for an unqualified attorney whose clients were apt to be unshaven potential killers and amateur bombmakers. No one really knew who paid him for consulting, but someone valued him highly: Dr. Kamil drove a brand new Rolls Royce.

And right now, that particular dark red Phantom drop-head coup was making short work of the long escarpment up Lakewood Moor on the western edge of the steep Pennines. At the wheel was Ahmed Kamil, frowning, speeding to do the bidding of Sheikh Abdullah in Bradford. His paymaster.

He knocked off the forty-two-mile journey in half an hour and pulled into the private parking lot next to the mosque shortly after 11 a.m. Swiftly he made his way down to the Sheikh’s office for his briefing.

Dr. Kamil made a note of the allegations that would probably be made against the men. And he requested the full names and addresses of the previous residents of 289 Darsfield Road. He also wanted to know the name of the official owners of the property, but Sheikh Abdullah ruled that would not be helpful. After three hours, Dr. Kamil set off to do battle with West Yorkshire Police. In his attaché case he carried copies of law
book pages detailing the new Acts of Parliament that specified the precise number of days permitted to hold suspects without trial.

There had been, quite recently, almost riot conditions in the House of Commons before they arrived at a twenty-eight days maximum. But that required warrants from judges and much other technical data. The golden number was forty-eight—the precise number of hours any suspect could be held without being charged with anything. Thanks to the diligent Freddie, Dr. Kamil knew the record would show the four prisoners had been held since 7 p.m. on the night of their arrest.

Kamil pulled into the police private parking lot and drove into an empty space, on the basis that no one ever doubted a Rolls Royce’s rights, because the owner was probably extremely important. He walked into the police station, marched straight to the front desk, ignoring a small line of waiting people, and announced himself as the lawyer representing four prisoners who had now been in custody for almost forty hours. “Please take me down to them immediately,” he said, knowing his request would be denied.

The station sergeant picked up the telephone and informed DS Len Martin there was someone to see him—“Lawyer representing the four Pakistanis downstairs,” he added.

Len Martin was not pleased. He was already skating on thin ice, and this intruder might make things extremely awkward. He instructed that Dr. Kamil be brought to his office.

“Sir,” Kamil said, “I have been retained to represent all four of the men, and I understand they have been held, so far without charge, since approximately 6 p.m. the night before last. My question is, do you intend to charge them, and if so with what?”

Len Martin thought quickly. “I am almost certainly going to charge them this afternoon with attempting to manufacture IEDs with intent to kill or maim citizens of the city of Bradford.”

“Have they been questioned?”

“Not yet.”

“Then how can you possibly know what their intent was? Also I need to know whether you have evidence that any of them were making anything that might explode. Was there TNT or dynamite in the house?”

“There was no actual explosive, but there were several electrical detonators and substantial quantities of industrial fertilizer, which can be quickly turned into high explosive.”

“My question, superintendent, is, were they in the process of turning it into high explosive?”

“Well, not precisely at that time.”

“Did they own the industrial fertilizers, or indeed the electrical detonators?”

“That we do not know.”

“Then we are dealing with the purely circumstantial evidence that placed these four men in the same house as certain ingredients of certain types of bomb.”

“I cannot easily dispute that.”

“Superintendent, do you know how long my clients had been in residence in number 289 Darsfield Street when your officers swooped on them.”

“No. I do not know that.”

“Less than five hours. They arrived from Pakistan that morning. Which means that my four clients were seized by the British police almost immediately after they moved into their residence. That they were handcuffed, thrown in jail, never questioned nor spoken to, and held without charge, all under an entirely false time of arrest?”

“What do you mean false time of arrest?”

Dr. Kamil took a chance. “Your record shows they were booked in here at 7 p.m., and therefore you are entitled to hold them for forty-eight hours, until 7 p.m. tonight. I am saying they were held in police custody from 6 p.m. not 7.”

“It was 7 p.m. when we checked them in,” replied Len Martin.

“But it was only 6 p.m. when you arrested them, handcuffed them, and subsequently ordered them into the police van, thus depriving them of their lawful liberties.”

“That’s not the way it works,” replied Martin. “Their time of entry into police custody is the time they arrive here. 7 p.m.”

“Then you dispute that to handcuff a man, and imprison him in the back of a police holding van with barred windows, under armed guard, is to deprive him of his liberty?. You think he’s still free to go about his lawful business?”

“Well, not exactly . . . ”

“I am afraid the law is an exact business, superintendent,” replied Dr. Kamil. “And I challenge your right to hold my clients for one moment after 6 p.m. this evening without charge.”

“And where do you propose to make this challenge?” said Martin.

“Oh, I have already requested a magistrate and a hearing, subject to an unsatisfactory conclusion to our meeting. Mr. Martin, I am afraid you must either charge them or release them at precisely six today.”

“You may assume we will charge them.”

“That’s your right. But I hope for your sake, you are able to reconcile the alleged bombmaking materials with the presence of my clients. Because I believe the previous residents of 289 Darsfield Street were convicted of bombmaking offenses after they were arrested in London.

“My clients will deny vigorously they even knew the stuff, or anything else, was in the house. They’d only just arrived, and you most certainly will find none of their fingerprints on anything except a few mugs of coffee.

“I think you’ll be very lucky to locate any judge or jury to find them guilty of anything. At which point, of course, I will have you charged with making wrongful arrests, and deliberately failing to grant my clients their legal right to a lawyer for more than forty hours. Our legal team will demand substantial damages.”

From a police point of view, this was going stupendously badly. Every aspect of the operation had swerved in the wrong direction. There was the threat of publicity, damage to police reputation, and a couple of criminal charges that could not possibly hold up. Not to mention the oncoming fury of the Ministry of Defense, Scotland Yard’s Antiterrorist Squad, the CIA, SAS and God knows who else. One word in the media could bring the bloody roof down on his head. Len Martin stood. “Dr. Kamil, I think we understand each other. Allow me to consult with my colleagues, and perhaps we can reconvene later.”

“I would appreciate that,” said Dr. Kamil. “Perhaps around 5:45 this afternoon?”

When he saw the Rolls pull out of the parking lot, DS Martin opened up his line to Lt. Colonel Makin, who wished to consult with the Americans. It was well after 5:30 p.m.(local), when the parties were all agreed that the operation would have to be put on hold, temporarily.

And at three minutes before 6 p.m. the al-Qaeda killers, Ibrahim Sharif, Yousaf Mohammed, Ben al-Turabi and Abu Hassan Akbar, for the second time in three months, walked free from police custody with no further stain on their character.

More importantly, they would not face Mack Bedford, who was already surveying his own personal killing field, up there on windswept Ilkley Moor.

Dr. Ahmed Kamil had, once more, earned his fee.

BY 6:30 THAT EVENING
, the weather on these high Yorkshire plains had deteriorated rapidly. The moors were famous for sudden storms, high winds, and fog, but in autumn, they were at their most capricious, with both the temperatures and the wind direction subject to swift, almost hourly, changes.

Mack Bedford, like all combat members of the Special Forces, especially SEALs and SAS, required about four times more reconnaissance than anyone else. All through the late afternoon, he had stood at his hotel window watching the light grow darker, and the winds begin to rise.

The rain set in, right after he had watched the BBC’s six o’clock news, at which point Mack decided to leave and begin his recce down by the two rocks, which he could now see, stark against the lowering sky. He wore his rainproof, camouflage trousers and over a polo-neck sweater, his cammy top. He pulled on waterproof combat boots, black leather gloves, and black balaclava hood. He loaded a magazine into his SIG-Sauer 9mm service revolver and jammed it into his leather belt, on the opposite side of his sheathed combat knife.

In the specially tailored inside pocket he placed a hand grenade sufficiently powerful to blow up the Cow and Calf Hotel. This was courtesy of Lt. Colonel Makin, “In case of a minor emergency.” He also carried a slim SEAL night glass telescope, but nothing to identify him in the event of his death.

Unavoidably attired as Public Enemy Number One, Mack Bedford opened the window of his ground-level room and stepped through it, out onto the rapidly darkening Ilkley Moor. He missed Len Martin’s call, postponing the operation, by twelve minutes.

Swiftly he ran clear of the light-field caused by the hotel, and moved into the wild country, where he was still able to pick out the distant outline of the stone cattle. He’d been in several creepy places in his life as a combat SEAL. But none more so than this.

The wind made a faint moaning sound, rising and falling, and the light rain beat on his outer clothes. He sensed the air should have been clear, but the altitude and the low cloud created mist, and the feeling of bleakness enveloped everything. Also it was goddamned cold.

So far as Mack could tell there was almost no chance of cover or shelter. Although he could rapidly become invisible by lying prostrate in the wet heather, he did not look forward to that. But SEALs like to claim their territory, becoming experts on the terrain, its feel and its sounds, long before their enemy arrives.

It was well after 7 p.m. when Mack reached the rocks, and he was amazed at their size. They towered above him, black satanic walls of stone, the largest one, an outcrop from the land, was not climbable without proper mountaineering kit. And it was surrounded by flat, rocky terrain, with just a little mountain grass. He walked around and then moved to the smaller boulder, about forty-five feet high, jutting out across the heather.

The road was a hundred yards away. From the enormous main outcrop, the Cow, to the nearest stretch of high heather was thirty-eight yards, a five-second sprint in an emergency. Mack was not thrilled about that—not on this wet, slippery terrain in the dark.

He continued to pace out distances. Checking visibility, watching for more deterioration. And within twenty minutes he noticed it was growing appreciably darker. The cloud was right over the moor. There would be no stars and no moon. For an attack, this was darn near perfect. For defense, it was not so good. If he had an enemy out here, that enemy could, in SEAL parlance, “walk up on him.” In his long experience not many people could achieve that, the one exception being those friggin’ mountain men in Afghanistan.
Those Afghan bastards could really nail you, creep right up on you, and never even snap a twig, or slip on the stony escarpment. Like goddamned goats they were, same sure-footedness, same goddamned smell, the only thing that might give ’em away
. Mack Bedford chuckled in the darkness.

So far as he knew, he was waiting for his four “targets,” who were being delivered by the police and then walking up to the rocks for their rendezvous. As far as he was concerned, there would be no predictable
enemy. The coast would be permanently clear for him to strike as and when he wished.

And yet, no SEAL or SAS man has ever settled for that mindset. They are so often in overseas territory, so often surrounded by enemies, they assume instinctively that every man’s hand is turned against them. Out here on the pitch black moor, danger could lurk anywhere. Every sense, every ounce of intuition, every nerve in his body was urging Mack to be goddamned careful.