Secret Asset (26 page)

56

L
iz stared intently at the monitors surveying Broad Street. She barely noticed when Dave stuck a plastic cup of white coffee in front of her. “Six sugars, right?” he teased, noting her preoccupation, and she gave a fleeting smile before resuming her watch. The Chancellor had left the Sheldonian a few minutes before, now “installed,” and had walked to Lincoln College through the Bodleian courtyard, under the watchful eye of a sharpshooter on the library's roof and with the full attention of several plain-clothes policemen on the ground.

Suddenly a young policewoman rushed into the room, her cheeks flushed. Seeing the group clustered in front of the monitors, she stopped short, made suddenly self-conscious by their curious stares. “Sir,” she said, out of breath, seeming to address both Matheson and the Chief Constable, “we've just had a warning call. It said there's about to be a major incident on Broad Street.”

“What were the exact words?” demanded Wetherby.

“I can play it back for you,” the policewoman said. She went to a console at the back of the room, hit a switch, and after a hiss and crackle the taped conversation filled the room.

“Special Branch,” a female voice declared.

“Listen carefully,” said an English male voice. “I will not repeat this message. In fifteen minutes, a bomb will go off in the middle of the procession on Broad Street. Look out for a young Pakistani man. You need to act fast.” The line went dead.

Liz and Wetherby looked at each other tensely.

Ferris the Chief Constable interjected. “It's not a hoax, is it?”

“No,” said Wetherby. “It is not a hoax. We recognise the voice.”

“Why did Tom call?” asked Dave, bewildered.

“And what about the other terrorists?” Liz said to Wetherby, worry spreading across her face.

Wetherby was shaking his head. He looked mystified. “If Tom knows what he's doing, I certainly don't.”

         

PC Winston's radio had crackled barely two or three minutes before with its urgent message, and he was positioned in front of the double gates of Trinity quad, helping to redirect the flow of foot traffic. The normal robust number of pedestrians was augmented today by visitors wanting to witness the pageantry of the Encaenia procession, and they were slow to clear, despite the urgency of the policemen ordering them away from the direction of the Sheldonian. There was a television crew from the local ITN station who were being particularly bolshie, since if the comparative boredom of yet another Encaenia was being upstaged by an “incident,” they were determined to be there to film it.

Now PC Winston found himself surrounded by Japanese tourists, who paid little attention to his instructions and were instead taking pictures of each other in front of Trinity. They wanted PC Winston to feature in their snaps as well, which was making his task even more difficult. He was doing his best to redirect one young girl in particular, who had no English at all but was vigorously tapping him on the elbow, when he saw him.

He was tucked in the back of a small group of Italian teenagers who were also ignoring instructions to move down the street. And the little man might have gone unnoticed if he had not been dressed so unlike a teenaged student, wearing a proper shirt instead of a T-shirt, and holding—somehow awkwardly—a mobile phone. And this sense that he was different was confirmed for PC Winston when the man peeled off from the group, moving back against the College gates, not fifteen feet away, and looked out towards the Turl. He's waiting for something, thought Winston, watching him closely as he fingered his phone.

PC Winston could move fast when he had to. The phone had just got to the little man's ear, when Winston's long arm took hold of his hand. “Excuse me, sir,” he said urgently, “could I have a look at your phone please?”

Looking up at him, the Asian seemed absolutely petrified. “Of course,” he said nervously, smiling weakly as he let go of the phone. Then he suddenly turned and took off down Broad Street towards the commercial centre of the town.

Clutching the phone, PC Winston ran after him, shouting, “Stop him!”

As Rashid ran towards the corner of the Magdalen Street churchyard, he was suddenly thrown against the outer wall of Balliol, then pinned there by the firm hands of another uniformed policeman. Got him! thought Winston, his sense of relief slightly soured when he saw it was PC Jacobs, the young smart-arse, who had made the arrest.

57

W
here was he? Why hadn't Rashid rung? Bashir disobeyed the Englishman's instructions and dialled Rashid's mobile, only to find it was switched off. Damn! He checked his watch—the procession would be reaching Broad Street at any moment. What had the Englishman said? “If there's any hiccup in communications, just go. Whatever happens, you must not be late. Late means
too
late.”

He would wait another thirty seconds, he decided, staring at his digital watch. Next to him Khaled suddenly stirred, and pointed through the windscreen. Looking out towards the end of the street, where the lush green lawns of University Parks were visible in the background, Bashir saw them.

One was in uniform, two were in plain clothes, walking briskly in and out of the street, checking each parked car, then moving on quickly. They were coming this way.

Please ring, please ring, Rashid, Bashir exclaimed, in what was almost a prayer. He saw one of the plain-clothes men point towards his end of the street, and then Bashir realised that he was pointing at him. The uniformed policeman looked up and broke into a sprint, grabbing his helmet with one hand while he shouted into a radio held by the other. The two plain-clothes men were behind him, and all three ran at full speed down the middle of the road.

He couldn't wait any longer. He turned the ignition and the van coughed into life. Revving the engine, he pulled out sharply, intending to accelerate towards Parks Road, where he would turn onto the half-mile street that would lead them to their target. Seeing him start up the van, the man in uniform veered off onto the pavement, and one of the plain-clothes policemen drew a gun from inside his coat, and crouched behind the rear of a parked car.

Then Bashir saw a large van—the kind used to ferry policemen back and forth from football matches—stop directly across the far end of the side street, blocking his exit. He braked sharply just in time to swerve into a small road that circled behind the back of Keble College. Racing along behind the modern extensions at the back of the College, he negotiated the ninety-degree left turn with a small screech of his tyres. But he cursed out loud when he saw
another
police van pulling up to block off this side road as well. There was nothing for it: Bashir floored the accelerator, driving straight towards the police vehicle, then just short of it he threw the steering wheel abruptly right. His front tyre hit the high corner of the pavement and the van shot into the air, missing a passing girl by inches. She screamed, the noise filling the air like a siren, slowly dying away as the van landed with a heavy thump on Parks Road.

Bashir regained control and accelerated down the tree-lined street towards the Encaenia procession. It must have reached the Broad, he told himself. Mustn't be late, mustn't be late. The road was free of traffic but he forced himself to slow down as the speedometer reached sixty-five. He was worried he wouldn't make the turn. He touched the brakes lightly once, then twice, and got ready. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Khaled grip the free end of the rope tightly.

The traffic light ahead was turning amber but he ignored it, praying no one would shoot out from Broad Street. Instead, ahead on his left, a student emerged from Holywell Street, riding a bicycle. As if in a film, a policeman came from nowhere and threw himself at the student, knocking him and his bicycle to the ground.

Before Bashir could fully take this in, he was in the junction, turning sharply right. He scraped inside the far pavement, just in front of the lower steps of the Clarendon Building, and struggled to aim the van towards the procession that should be heading straight towards him. He was going to drive along the pavement and then Khaled would pull the rope. The explosion would kill anyone within a hundred yards. That was what the Englishman had said. A hundred yards.

But the Broad was
absolutely empty
. There was no one on the pavement or on the street. No procession, no pedestrians, not even a student on a bicycle. It was like a ghost town.

Bashir began to panic as he felt a heavy thump against his front left tyre. What had he hit? Then almost simultaneously he felt the heavy
whoomph
of another tyre blowing. Suddenly he lost control of the steering.

The van skewed sharply left, in a curving skid propelling him directly towards the wall in front of the Sheldonian. Bashir knew in a flash that Khaled didn't need to pull the rope. The impact alone would trigger the detonators, he thought.

58

L
iz crouched with Charles Wetherby behind one of the police cars, taking cover as soon as she saw the first tyre shot out by the marks-men. She waited for an explosion, and covered her ears with her hands. Beside her, Wetherby spontaneously threw a protective arm around her shoulders.

There was a harsh, grating sound of metal hitting an immoveable object, and a muffled thump which seemed half sound, half vibration.

And then there was silence. Liz began to raise her head but Wetherby pushed her down again. “Wait,” he said. “Just in case.” But there was no explosion, and as the pressure from his arm eased, Liz peered cautiously over the bonnet of the police car.

The van had hit the retaining wall and been thrown upwards, where it lay against the tall iron railings, pointing towards the sky, its front tyres spinning in the air.

Matheson moved out from the protection of the cars and began shouting orders. A fire engine appeared from Debenhams behind them. Avoiding the forbidding bollards at that end of the Broad, it trundled heavily up along the pavement by the shops, squeezing slowly through the narrow gap before accelerating, siren now blaring, towards the van.

As it arrived, armed policemen emerged from the crannies and doorways where they had sheltered, and moved towards the crashed vehicle. A Special Branch officer in plain clothes got to the van first, reached up and tugged at the driver's door, fruitlessly. He's brave, thought Liz, since there was a petrol tank that could still detonate.

She came out from behind the car and began to walk with Wetherby cautiously towards the van. Dave Armstrong joined them, breathless and looking stunned. “What was that about?” he asked. Neither Liz nor Wetherby responded.

As they moved down the Broad, firemen were shooting powerful jets of foam over the van.

Liz said, “I don't understand why Tom made the phone call.”

“Well he didn't warn us about the van,” said Dave sharply.

Wetherby shrugged. “Perhaps he felt he didn't need to.”

Liz looked at him inquiringly, just as Matheson intercepted them. “There were two men in the van. They're both dead,” he announced.

“Killed by the crash?” asked Wetherby.

Matheson nodded. “They had a fertiliser bomb in the back of the van, but it didn't go off. It's too early to say for sure, but it looks as if the detonators didn't work.”

“I'm not sure they were meant to,” said Wetherby slowly.

Liz looked at him again; Wetherby's expression seemed entirely enigmatic. “You think they knew there wasn't going to be an explosion?” she asked.

“No, but I think Tom did,” said Wetherby. “You said yourself that you couldn't understand why he'd want to kill so many innocent people. He wanted the van to get through, but he knew it wasn't going to blow up.”

“Why would he do that?” asked Liz. “What would the point be?”

Wetherby shrugged. “I suppose to demonstrate it could be done. To show us up as dangerously incompetent.” He pointed up the street, where Liz could see a television crew advancing. “That may be a local crew,” said Wetherby, “but you can be confident their footage is going to make the national news this evening. None of us is going to look good after that kind of exposure.”

“So that's what he wanted?” asked Liz. “To destroy the Service's reputation?”

“Something like that.”

“Hang on,” interrupted Dave. “He didn't care if the two blokes died, did he?” he asked impatiently, gesturing towards the crashed van.

“Of course he didn't,” said Wetherby. He gave a mirthless laugh. “I'm not defending Tom. I'm just saying I think his objective was more subtle than we gave him credit for. And thank God.” He looked around the Broad, full of policemen standing by while the firemen continued to cover the van with foam. “Think how many people could have been killed. If Tom hadn't phoned, this place would have been full of people…”

They were standing in the middle of the Broad, only yards from the van. Liz looked around, still amazed that there had been no explosion, and no casualties other than the driver and his passenger. Then along the high railings above the wall which the van had hit, she saw that two stone pedestals were empty—their “Roman Emperor” heads had gone. It was surreal.

Wetherby pointed at some smashed fragments littering the Broad. He said wryly, “Somehow I don't think those are the only heads that are going to roll.”

59

T
he policeman was moving everyone away from the windows, though Tom knew it wasn't necessary. They were led to the vast downstairs room of the bookshop and made to stay there for almost half an hour. He kept a careful eye on his watch, and after eight minutes smiled involuntarily as the countdown finally ended. Three years, he told himself, I planned this for three years—and now at last the moment's come.

He felt absolutely jubilant. He knew that upstairs on the street the police would be reeling with confusion as they discovered the crashed van contained fertiliser that had not exploded: the detonators he had given Bashir were useless—they wouldn't light a cigarette, thought Tom, much less set off a bomb.

The local reaction, as news spread like wildfire about this near-disaster, would be relief, though Tom was certain Oxford would never know another public Encaenia procession. But further away, at Thames House, the reaction would be altogether different. In Thames House, he reckoned, the inhabitants would be having a collective heart attack.

For they would have no idea where he was, and no lead to finding him. They would be worried sick that he would strike again—and they were right to worry. Oxford was just the beginning, and he could see no reason why he could not stay one step ahead of his former colleagues for a long time to come. He looked at his watch. In three hours he'd be in his hotel room on the outskirts of Bristol. In little more than twenty-four, his plane would be preparing to land at JFK.

In the short term as well, he had given MI5 plenty to cope with. Their embarrassment at this close call would rapidly give way to anxious post-mortems, internal inquiries, a media storm, questions in the House, the blame game, the indisputable damage to the reputation of the intelligence services. “Why had they failed to stop the bombers?” “What if the detonators had worked?” And that was before they'd even begun to grapple with the knowledge that for almost fifteen years, they'd had a mole in their midst. A mole they couldn't catch.

Now a policeman let them out at last, and they all trooped up the staircase that led directly out onto the Broad. Tom lagged a little behind, for safety's sake, and was very glad he did. Twenty feet short of the exit, he looked out at the street from the top stair and saw the familiar figure of Liz Carlyle standing in the middle of the road, talking to Charles Wetherby.

At first, he didn't believe his eyes. How had they got on to him here? How had they known his target? It didn't make any sense; he had been so careful.

Could they have turned one of the bombers? No, for only Bashir had known the exact target—Khaled had been content not to know, and Rashid was too weak ever to be trusted either by him or Bashir. Bashir would never betray a cause he was so willing to die for. And if any of them talked now—he assumed they would have been captured minutes before—they would know nothing that would let either the police or Tom's former colleagues find him.

Who then could have given him away? Had O'Phelan talked before Tom had got to him in Belfast? It seemed inconceivable—why would the lecturer have rung Tom and warned him that Liz had been to see him, asking nosy questions?

There seemed no obvious answer to what had gone wrong, but he had no time to think it through. Turning back, away from the door, he moved back into the building. One of the Blackwell's assistants touched his arm—she had been like a Border collie, herding them up the stairs from behind—and he flashed the charming smile he'd learned to use like a weapon. “I left something behind,” he explained.

She'd smiled back, and let him go. Patience, he told himself. Don't panic. But you've got to get out of here fast. This was just stage one, after all. He mustn't be stopped now.