Agent of the State (46 page)

The first was a Saudi-owned two-bedroom terraced house in Hounslow let at low rent to Pakistani tenants, who could be displaced at short notice. The other was occupied by a half-blind Afghan veteran, who had occupied a flat near Finsbury Park mosque until 9/11 had brought the police to his door. His new home was a modest first-floor bedsit over a TV-repair shop in Kilburn. For the final chapter in this high-risk blackmail operation, Hussain had chosen the Afghan over the Saudi address. Hidden away in a quiet side-street twenty metres from Kilburn High Road, the bedsit was perfect for his requirements.

Jibril descended even farther into Green Park station after his assault on Justin. He took a Jubilee Line train north and, confident he had lost all surveillance, left the network at Willesden Green station. A light drizzle was falling as he walked down Walm Lane into Willesden High Road, continued past the church and turned right into a side-street alongside the police station. The houses each side were mostly modest 1930s terraces and semis, and parked cars lined the pavement. Some of the properties were well maintained, with neat front gardens or block paving for off-road parking, while others, probably rented, had been left in disrepair for many years.

Traffic was local and light in the cluster of streets contained between the High Road and the railway to which he was headed, and the young man passed unnoticed among mothers pushing buggies loaded with family shopping and kids bunking off school. He continued for a couple of hundred metres until the street swept to the left out of sight of the High Road, and then, with a quick look back, swung right into a much narrower turning.

This was little more than an access road of cracked concrete wide enough for only one row of parked cars. It separated a line of run-down 1950s maisonettes to the right from a decrepit block of flats four storeys high on the opposite side. The space for parked cars was on the maisonette side, while vehicles from the flats turned left halfway down the road to pass under an arch built into the block and park out of sight to the rear. Almost without exception, the cars were at least a decade old. Beyond the buildings there were railway tracks, servicing both main-line trains and the Tube. The road seemed to be a dead end, disappearing into overgrown bushes just short of the railway. In fact, it led to a sharp right turn just beyond the last maisonette, too small for anything larger than a hatchback to navigate without difficulty. The concrete, by this time even more potholed, then dropped into a dip at right angles to the maisonettes and ended in a row of twelve lock-up garages on the left, with the backs less than ten feet from the railway fencing.

The garages were brick-built with wooden double doors. They were small, constructed to accommodate cars from a much earlier era, but must have belonged to someone, for each was secured by a padlock. Rubbish blown against the doors and weeds growing through the concrete entrances showed that few, if any, were still used, and the curling felt on each roof and terrible condition of the door panels showed that all had been left to rot. The row was overrun by trees and vegetation, which masked it completely from the residential blocks and the railway. Apart from a few syringes and plastic bottles, there was no sign that anyone ever came here. The garages were invisible. It was as if their very isolation had protected them from the demolition men.

With another quick look behind him, Jibril followed the road into the dip and walked past the end garage to a clump of brambles. He reached beneath a rock concealed in the bush and removed a heavy-duty padlock key. He went to the third garage from the end, inserted his key, opened the left door a fraction and slipped inside.

The Turkish former Secret Service agents selected by Abdul Malik had constructed the bomb factory very quickly and with great skill. The decaying exterior bore no relation to the condition inside. They had fixed the ceiling and used a special sealant around the surfaces to make the garage dry, but without any visible sign of repair from the outside.

Along the left side there was a raised oak workbench with two high stools, good quality desk lamps, a toolbox, three soldering irons and a large reel of green twine. A metal box contained the copper tubing, nails, batteries and timers. The most recent target had been Pamela Masters: Malik’s car-bomb expert had made the device used to destroy her Nissan on this very bench.

Beyond it, by the far corner, there was a dirty electric stove with a large pan on the hob. Against the end wall a fridge was used to store fresh food and stabilise the explosive mix. A microwave oven stood on top of it. A futon with a pillow and a couple of blankets lay along the opposite wall. With the safe-house in Lambeth compromised, Jibril would hide here until his mission was accomplished. A specially made cloth vest, with pockets to contain the lethal mix that would convert it into a bomb, hung from a large wall hook. The string and toggle that would soon be used to detonate it draped innocently over the bench above a new sports bag. Jibril carefully opened the zip. Inside, exactly as Hussain had promised him, he found a vest identical to that hanging on the wall, except this was already lethal.

Jibril locked the garage factory, returned the key to its hiding place and retraced his steps with the bag as far as the junction of the High Road with Walm Lane. He had memorised the Afghan address many weeks ago. Instead of returning to Willesden Green station he took a right fork into Willesden Lane, continuing for a quarter of a mile before turning left, following the sign for Brondesbury main-line station and Kilburn High Road, his mind a mirror of the street map he had studied and destroyed.

Abdul Malik arrived in Kilburn shortly after three. The Afghan had been sent away for the afternoon, so Fatima Ujama answered the door and, without a word, showed him into the tiny living quarters where her husband was waiting to reconcile his half of a ten-pound note with Malik’s. The two men said nothing beyond a brotherly greeting in English, while Fatima made herself busy in the kitchen and brought them tea.

Walid Ujama knew nothing about Abdul Malik or his mission. Like Ahmed Jibril before him, his role was to survive, not immolate himself, and he had learnt never to be inquisitive unless it was for a specific operational purpose. And if he was intimidated or repelled by Malik’s double-breasted black suit, expensive mid-length coat, highly polished shoes and general air of affluence, he did not show it.

The two men waited in silence while Fatima peered towards the street corner through a chink in the curtain. After a few minutes she shot her husband a glance. ‘Our brother is arriving now.’ She kept a sharp lookout for surveillance as Ahmed Jibril walked up the street, then hurried downstairs to let him in.

Entering the room, Jibril carefully laid the sports bag against the wall before allowing Walid to welcome him. There was warmth in the embrace, but respect, too, for the man who had just escaped imprisonment and interrogation in a British cell. In his turn, Jibril showed deference to Abdul Malik, who nodded but stood his ground by the table.

While Fatima brought refreshments and Malik looked on, Walid satisfied himself that the ingredients, components and detonating mechanism in Jibril’s bag were of the highest quality, as directed by Rashid Hussain. He was so thorough and professional that he practically dismantled the device to ensure its fitness for purpose, while Jibril stood at his shoulder and studied every move.

After forty minutes, Walid nodded to the director that they were ready. Malik stood upright with arms outstretched as Walid gently fitted the bomb vest and fed the toggle through the sleeve of his expensive jacket. Fatima moved around helping him, subservient but skilled with experience, adjusting the length of the trigger line running along Malik’s arm. When they were finished, Walid asked him when the vest would be needed. The question was out of operational necessity rather than idle curiosity.

‘Tonight, brother,’ answered Jibril for him, without volunteering more.

‘So I should wrap it in the bag for safety, yes?’

This time the reply came from the director himself. ‘No need for the bag,’ said Abdul Malik, casually, buttoning the jacket as if he had just bought a new suit and pulling on his overcoat. ‘I shall wear it now.’

Fifty-six

Thursday, 27 September, 18.17, New Scotland Yard and Westminster

Back at the Yard, Alan Fargo remained in the ops room after the catastrophic surveillance loss of Jibril, checking every piece of kit for the umpteenth time and keeping his comms specialists on red alert. Alice, his senior comms monitor, stayed in constant touch with Steve Gibb in the observation post opposite Jibril’s safe-house, and everyone hoped against hope for their main target’s reappearance on the plot.

When he recovered consciousness, Justin had refused to go to hospital. Kerr had him taken there anyway, as everyone regrouped around Whitehall. Then, by car, motorcycle and on foot, Jack Langton’s Reds made their signal checks and prowled in wait for Robert Attwell and Claire Grant.

To the north, in the drab hotel room near King’s Cross station, Abdul Malik rose from his bed and went to the bathroom to cleanse himself. He had returned from Kilburn around four and removed all his clothes, hanging his suit in the wardrobe and, like a modern gunslinger, draping the bomb vest over the back of the chair.

When he was ready, he dressed again and carefully secured the explosives around his chest, feeding the trigger line through the sleeve of his jacket. He picked up his passport to make identification of his body easier and wandered to the corner of the street in sight of the station, where the hired limousine was parked, engine purring. His pair of ex-Turkish Secret Service hoods were waiting patiently for the leader they admired so completely.

The three men knew this was a special occasion, the last meeting in their lives. There were few pleasantries on the drive west along Euston Road to Chiswick, and neither felt in fear of the explosives wrapped around Malik’s body.

Malik was quiet until they reached Knightsbridge, and the protectors had no wish to invade his thoughts. ‘At what time do you think I should act?’ he asked.

‘I advise you enter by eight o’clock,’ said the more intelligent of the two, polishing his glasses, ‘before the infidels disperse to the bedrooms. We will contain them in the reception room until you are ready.’

‘Rashid Hussain tells me the evening news is at ten o’clock, correct?’

‘Yes. We have timed your holy mission to generate the fullest media coverage.’

‘And the building will be sealed, yes?’

‘Tight as a vault.’

To the west, in Hammersmith, Olga looked out for her limousine. Wearing a silk dress she hated because it was a gift from Yuri Goschenko, and the diamond bracelet she loved because it would bring her justice, she inserted the earpiece, checked in the mirror that it was hidden by her hair, and waited for Jack Langton’s test call. His voice came to her immediately, as if he had been watching her. She breathed into the bracelet that she could hear him, and felt a childish pleasure when he praised her. ‘I am so nervous,’ she said.

Langton’s voice came to her again as Goschenko’s Mercedes swept up, with Karl behind the wheel. She found some of his words difficult to understand because of his Geordie accent, but he always sounded very calm. ‘Try to relax. John and I are parked very close by. We can see you. Just take your time and tell us whatever you can. Olga, we will never let you come to harm.’

Robert Attwell gave the Reds the lead. They were waiting for him when he left the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in King Charles Street. He was carrying a black holdall and turned left, hurrying towards Whitehall. In a black cab, with Langton’s surveillance operatives all over him like a rash, he went west through Hyde Park Corner, Gloucester Road and Kensington, passing within a stone’s throw of Olga’s street in Hammersmith on the journey to Chiswick. Dismissing the cab in Ellesmere Road, he walked through the park leading to a wide crescent and entered a large Edwardian house. Fargo had left the channel open, so the team received everything. ‘Alan from Melanie, address is one five four Pentland Crescent, Chiswick.’

‘Received. Nice one, Mel,’ Fargo shot back.

‘Property checks in quick time, please, Al,’ said Melanie, rapidly scanning the electronic map beside her. ‘All units from Melanie. Stay clear of the house. Rendezvous point is the cemetery car park off Old Station Road. Are you getting this, Jack?’

‘Yes. Our subjects are just leaving for the address now. Olga with Goschenko. Karl driving. John and I are staying with them, approximately ten minutes away,’ came Langton’s voice. ‘What’s the roof like, Mel?’

When Attwell’s taxi slowed, Melanie had pulled into the kerb, then skirted the park and stopped in the crescent. She had good cover, her vehicle concealed behind a row of parked cars. The target house was illuminated by streetlights, with an escape route down a side-road to the left. She was already out of the car when Langton called her, making a recce of the house on foot, a local jogger in trackie bottoms and grey hoodie, radio disguised as an iPod.

The house was double-fronted and painted white, on three storeys and set back about twenty paces from the crescent. The guests approached along a sweeping gravel drive leading to enormous black double doors wide enough to take a vehicle. Melanie immediately saw the fire escape on the right side and ran on the spot for a few seconds, catching her breath and surveying the access. ‘Looks workable. I think we have a way into the top floor.’