Three Weeks in September Read online

  “Daddy,” Athena had said, “I thought you should wait for a while. I warned you against making a rash decision, especially at a time like this.”

  “The estate agent told me she believes we’re at the top of the market right now. In six months’ time, a delay could have cost me half a million. No, the decision’s made. When I lock the door behind us when we leave for the funeral that’s the last time I set foot in the place. I’ll stay here until I find a suitable bungalow along the coast if you’ll have me?”

  “Of course, we will Daddy,” said Athena, “what about Mummy’s things? What will you do with the furniture and your clothes?”

  “I’ll hand a set of keys to the estate agent. She will show a series of oil-rich Arabs around, no doubt. She assured me there would be no problem finding storage for my bits and pieces once the sale was complete. I’ll only need a fraction of what’s in the house in my new little nest.”

  “It will be strange not going there anymore. It’s the only home I’ve known,” said Athena. “Oh well, if you’re sure you’re doing the right thing. We’re set for Monday if that’s the right thing to say regarding a funeral. Sarah Gough is travelling up to Kensal Green. She wanted to meet with you beforehand. Perhaps, I should ask her to come to the house? We can travel across London together.”

  “Will Sarah say a few words about Grace?” asked her father.

  “If that’s what you prefer,” said Athena, “I’ve already taken note of the pertinent details. If I email those to her, she can prepare something.”

  “That would be better,” said Geoffrey Fox, “I don’t think I could manage it.”

  Athena had given her father a hug as his shoulders sagged after that. Monday couldn’t come around soon enough. It might bring a pinch of closure and enable them to move forward.

  Athena’s cup of coffee was cold now. She had been staring into space for several minutes. She could hear Hope talking to herself in her bedroom, and the sound of the shower that suggested Phoenix was nearly ready to face another day.

  Athena poured a fresh cup when he walked through to the kitchen. His hair was still wet, and he looked tired.

  “Coffee, darling?”

  There was a grunt in response that Athena took to be an answer in the affirmative. Her husband must have had a restless night. She wasn’t the only one with plenty on their mind.

  “The news from New Street’s surveillance yesterday wasn’t encouraging,” she said.

  “That’s an understatement,” replied Phoenix, “I don’t know what to do next.”

  “The morning meeting might bring better news,” said Athena, “when Giles updates us.”

  The couple finished breakfast, saw to their daughter, and then handed her over to her nanny, Maria Elena. As they left for the meeting room, Geoffrey Fox put his head around the door.

  “No rest for the wicked, I see,” he smiled, “can Hope come out to play?”

  “Maria Elena will give Hope her breakfast first,” said Athena, “but if this weather stays fine, the three of you can walk around the grounds. The fresh air will do you good.”

  Phoenix and Athena left the room. The sound of happy voices followed them up the corridor.

  “Your father meant no rest from the wicked,” said Phoenix, “if only sunshine and laughter solved all our problems.”

  The others already gathered in the meeting room. After the usual preliminaries, Giles updated the terrorist situation.

  “We’ve searched high and low for Mansouri and Harrack. They haven’t appeared on a CCTV camera anywhere in Birmingham in the past thirty-six hours. In my opinion, they’ve gone to ground in the city. Everywhere they might have travelled to has been scrutinised too, and they haven’t been spotted. Artemis is trying a new program which allows us to hack into every hotel and B&B in the city. There’s no point looking for a booking by name. I’ve asked her to concentrate on two men booking into somewhere between six and seven o’clock on Wednesday evening. It’s a long shot. They could easily have several safe houses in the city.”

  “It’s a start, Giles,” said Phoenix, “what intelligence do we have on terrorist cells in the Midlands? I know it’s risky, but can’t you hack into our own security services? It would be useful if they gave us a long list of possible names and addresses.”

  “That’s not as daft as it sounds, Phoenix,” said Rusty. “If cells exist out there, they have probably identified them, interviewed them, and filed the information for future reference.”

  This remark hit a sore spot for Athena. Her fiancée died in the London bombings of July 2005. One bomber had been on a watch list, but no action was taken. A decade later, Rusty suggested the security services were no quicker off the mark than before.

  The weekend stretched before them. Tasks were allocated. Hopes for better news expressed. Athena closed the meeting at lunchtime and reminded the others Minos was in the chair for Monday’s meeting, as she and Phoenix went to London.

  As Henry Case and Giles Burke passed the stable block on their way to the ice-house, they heard a telephone ring.

  “I bet that’s someone for Hugh,” said Henry, “he gets more than his fair share, I reckon.”

  “Phone calls, do you mean?” asked Giles. “I saw a car parked outside here yesterday for ages. I’ve no idea who it belonged to.”

  “Someone he knew well, I believe,” smiled Henry, “if my ears didn’t deceive me.”

  “The crafty devil,” said Giles.

  “We shouldn’t cast the first stone, Giles. Every one of us along that corridor has been guilty in recent months.”

  “Oh, I must tell Maria Elena to keep the noise down. I hadn’t realised how thin the walls were.”

  Inside the stable block, Hugh listened to Ambrosia on the phone.

  “Yesterday was wonderful,” she said, “everything I hoped it would be. I don’t need to confess to you it wasn’t my first time. My father was old-fashioned, he started looking for suitable husbands when I reached fifteen. Some were even older than him, it was horrible. I kept refusing them, but he wouldn’t force me into a marriage I didn’t want thank goodness. He thought of me as a rebel and didn’t want me to go away to University. Even after I returned to the family business, he was still keen for me to marry well. It was important for him to believe I was still intact. I never let him know I’d experimented with two or three fellow students. It was only lust, not love.”

  “Yesterday came as a surprise,” said Hugh, “a very welcome surprise. I can’t wait to see you again.”

  “We will see much more of one another in the future,” said Ambrosia, “don’t worry. Although, after yesterday that might be difficult.”

  The sound of her cheeky laughter made Hugh smile.

  “The Olympus teams will join our Irregulars at New Street in the morning,” he told her. “They will both be working to the same instructions on what to do if they have a confirmed sighting.”

  “We must cross our fingers, and hope the terrorists break cover,” said Ambrosia, “enjoy the weekend, Hugh. I’ll call you on Monday.”

  *****

  Saturday, 13th September 2014

  Events three thousand miles away changed everyone’s plans.

  Athena called an emergency meeting on Saturday afternoon.

  Minos read them the news of another atrocity: -

  “David Haines was abducted eighteen months ago by an unidentified armed gang while working in a refugee camp near the Turkish border. Haines was seized along with an Italian aid worker. Their Syrian translator and driver escaped unharmed. The Foreign Office ordered his family not to speak to anybody about the abduction.”

  “Didn’t Haines appear in the Sotloff execution video that threatened Haines would be the next victim?” asked Henry Case.

  “After that execution video surfaced,” said Alastor, “it was admitted that the aid worker was one target of a failed American rescue mission. The jihadist group moved the hostages before the American commandos arrived.”


  “Haines was shown with Jihadi John,” continued Minos. “He was declared as the next possible victim. John warned those governments that entered this evil alliance of America against Islamic State to leave their people alone.”

  “A video of the lead-up and aftermath of Haines' beheading was released earlier today,” said Alastor, “it showed a second British captive, who it appears is destined for the same fate.”

  The room fell silent.

  “The frequency of these executions is increasing,” said Henry. “Is it possible the bombings are following a similar pattern?”

  “These recent bombings are growing in size, if not in frequency,” said Rusty. “Which brings us back to what Giles mentioned yesterday. Mansouri and Harrack won’t be working alone on New Street. So, where are the other members of the cell, and what have they been doing for the past two days?”

  “We couldn’t trace where Mansouri and Harrack spent Sunday night until Wednesday morning,” said Phoenix. “What if they stayed with another cell member, based in Liverpool?”

  “That’s your weekend sorted, Giles,” said Henry. “You need to trace people with possible links to IS in the Midlands and Liverpool. Even the authorities admit we have around twenty thousand jihadists in the UK.”

  “Needle and haystack come to mind,” sighed Giles, “but that’s what we’re good at.”

  *****

  While Giles Burke and Artemis continued the search for clues, the crowds of shoppers in the commercial centre of Birmingham enjoyed a very warm September afternoon. Inside and outside the nearby New Street station the Olympus agents and their new colleagues kept vigil.

  Trains arrived at every platform with a frequency that made the head spin. West Midlands Trains ran services from Lichfield, Longbridge, Redditch and Wolverhampton that interested Mansouri and Harrack. They noted that almost every platform was longer than usual and permitted two trains to stop at the same time. There was a constant turnover of traffic, with trains pulling away with their new passengers headed for distant locations. Some were stationary as people alighted or boarded; and new trains inched their way into the station, slowing to a gradual halt.

  The possibilities for chaos were endless.

  When the initial planning stage had been discussed, al-Hamady explained why Birmingham was such a fertile area for recruiting the men they needed to make this attack unforgettable.

  The city is home to Britain’s largest Muslim community, estimated at three hundred thousand. It was home to the alleged Saudi financier of the 9/11 attacks. The birthplace of Britain’s first suicide bomber and the centre of the country’s first Al Qaeda terror plot. The distinctive regional accent is heard the loudest in Belmarsh prison where most terror suspects are held.

  Mansouri and Harrack had listened intently as al-Hamady told them: -

  “The ongoing troubles in Kashmir made it easier for a young Muslim from Birmingham to fly out and join our training camps. They became indoctrinated into Islamic State ideology. Kashmiri separatist groups acted as stepping stones to groups such as Al Qaeda and now IS. Twenty years ago, Kashmiri militant leaders had visited Birmingham urging the community to help in the fight against India. These visitors left a mark on the city’s young Muslims. The result has been that terrorist recruiters have found young men eager to listen to their message rather than the moderate imams in the city’s mosques.”

  Four young men who read the extremist views these militants had spread among members of their families were travelling into New Street this afternoon.

  The Longbridge service carried Badawi Akhtar, twenty-six-years-old and born in Walsall. He studied a chemistry degree at Aston University between 2005 and 2008. The thirty-minute journey from the north of the city was a pleasant one. The people surrounding him in the carriage were eager to shop in the arcades and malls of the Bullring. This augured well for the day of the attack.

  The Redditch train would bring Fidvi Rahman into New Street from the opposite direction. His forty-minute train did not stop en route. Rahman was twenty-five-years-old and had been born in Balsall Heath, but now lived in Winson Green. He was unemployed now, but until 2013 had worked at a supermarket.

  Yafir Uddin was twenty-nine-years-old and born in Winson Green. He worked at a call centre in Wolverhampton. He had driven to Lichfield this morning. The cathedral city with its Georgian townhouses was light years away from his inner-city, working-class background. The journey to Platform 12B took between thirty-five and forty minutes.

  Uddin had travelled to Syria in 2012. Eleven months ago, he was arrested on suspicion of violent disorder but released as the authorities found insufficient evidence to prosecute. Earlier this summer his home was searched by counter-terrorism officers as part of coordinated raids in connection with an ongoing Syria investigation.

  Zahar Osman was twenty-six-years-old had been born in Bangladesh and came to the UK in 2006. His family lived in Wolverhampton. Osman was studying for a law degree but spent much of his time online encouraging acts of terrorism. He walked to the station to ride into New Street. It was only a twenty-minute trip.

  Along with many IS militants, Osman was a prolific social media user. His videos urging others to travel to the training camps in Pakistan had racked up tens of thousands of views on YouTube. After becoming radicalised, Osman travelled to Syria in October 2013. He featured in an IS propaganda video last year.

  By three-thirty in the afternoon, the four young Muslims stood on different platforms at New Street station. Surrounded by crowds of fellow-travellers they could not see one another. Contact was made by mobile phone; not to each other, but to Ahmed Mansouri in the nearby hotel. The young men confirmed that everything included in al-Hamady’s plans would go smoothly. The next time these four men travelled by train it would be a final step towards paradise.

  All four had been susceptible to the warped messages of hate the extremist groups preached. They didn’t have a strong affinity to the UK, nor to the same beliefs, their parents and grandparents shared. The extremists offered a strong identity to bond to, a sense of belonging. Brainwashing is easier in cultures with a focus on the afterlife. For them, a real paradise is only a moment away, a golden future to be entered into by the world of death.

  Muslim suicide bombers fulfil their act of sacrifice with a smile on their face because they believe they will reap huge rewards in return, for eternity. Their sins will be forgiven, and a place in paradise will be reserved for them. They will be crowned with glory and welcomed by seventy-two beautiful virgins. They will be spared the suffering of the grave and the horror of the Day of Judgment while seventy members of his family will also have places reserved in paradise.

  Akhtar, Rahman, Uddin, and Osman shared these firm beliefs. They smiled as they relayed the good news to Mansouri. The young men were ready to fulfil their destiny.

  Mansouri called al-Hamady in Liverpool. The Syrian gave his instructions. The attack was to take place next Saturday afternoon. He told Mansouri to tell the young men to return home. Everything they needed to carry with them on the trains next week would now be prepared and delivered to their home address on Saturday morning.

  After the message had been relayed, three young men moved towards the exit. They headed for the escalators that deposited them in Thousand Trades Square. A short walk then took them to Grand Central where they could get the Midland Metro to Wolverhampton. Only Akhtar remained inside the station. He waited for the next train back to Walsall.

  Monty Jacks sat on Platform 7. He had been on duty since nine this morning. He had wheeled his wheelchair up and down various platforms in the interim. There had been no sightings of Mansouri or Harrack. In fact, he saw nothing suspicious. There had been lots of attractive ladies at the station suitably under-dressed for the mini-heatwave.

  Badawi Akhtar wandered aimlessly down the platform. Monty studied the young Muslim. He was certain he recognised the distinctive sunglasses and an unkempt beard. He wasn’t one he was watching for, but wh
y did he hang around so long after he got off the train?

  Monty moved his wheelchair further up the platform. He stopped and checked the message boards. That train had come from Longbridge, which was where the massive car plants used to be until ten years ago. The next train leaving from this end of Platform 7 was going to Walsall. Monty knew the quickest way to make the Longbridge-Walsall journey was to go straight there via Aston. One stop, and you arrived in Walsall in an hour.

  This bloke was either a muppet, or there was another reason he had come into the city. As far as Monty could tell, he hadn’t met anyone, and never chatted to a soul. He had seen him on his phone for a while. This one was worth a closer look. He took a snap headshot of the young man on his phone.

  Monty Jacks called the Olympus team leader outside.

  “I have a suspicious one here, on Platform 7A,” he said, “here is what he looks like. Can you get him checked out?”

  “OK, Monty, will do,” came the reply.

  Monty Jacks looked across to where the man had stood. He had disappeared.

  It was a quarter to four. The Walsall train was due to leave. Monty spun his chair around. Had his suspect left for another platform? It was difficult to see with the crowds jostling around him. There were dozens of people too on the opposite platform.

  Monty parked his chair by an electronic advertising board and scanned the faces facing him. The track a yard in front of him began to rumble. A train was approaching. It sounded heavy, and although it wasn’t travelling fast, it didn’t appear to be slowing.

  Monty sensed someone behind him. A hand grabbed his phone. and then a foot shoved him hard in the back. His wheelchair shot forward. Monty realised it was a freight train he had heard. He heard screams as his chair reached the edge of the platform and tipped over. One of them may have been his own. The slow-moving freight train and its fifty heavily laden trucks were halted when the alarm was raised by an emergency signal, but Monty Jacks was dead.