Stephen Leather - False Friends

‘Got someone who’d like a chinwag with you, if you’re up for it,’ said Kettering. ‘Friend of mine from Germany is interested in the same sort of kit you’re getting for me.’

‘Sweet,’ said Shepherd.

‘Big numbers too. Figured you and he ought to get together.’

‘No problem,’ said Shepherd. ‘Where are you?’

‘Let’s do it down your way,’ said Kettering. ‘Just wanted to check that you were interested. I’ll fix up a time. Tomorrow good for you?’

‘Sunday? You not going to church?’

‘Ha bloody ha,’ said Kettering. ‘Are you around or not?’

‘I’ll clear my diary,’ said Shepherd.

He ended the call and sat down on the sofa, tapping the mobile against the side of his head, his forehead creased into a frown. A European connection was exactly what Button had been hoping for. The last thing that Shepherd had expected was to have it handed to him on a plate.

Kamran Khalid never felt at home in London, but he never felt as if he was out of place either. He wore a long grey shirt over light-green baggy pants and had a white skullcap on his head, and the man he was with wore similar clothing, but in the English capital in the third millennium there was nothing at all unusual about the way he was dressed. Nor was there anything unusual about his ethnicity — as they walked across the bridge from Stratford town centre the majority of people around him had Asian or Arabic heritage and in the space of five minutes he had heard half a dozen languages spoken, none of them English. London had become one of the most ethnically mixed cities on the planet, which is why it was the perfect place for a terrorist to hide. The police weren’t permitted to stop and question anybody solely on the basis of their appearance, not even to ask if the person had the necessary permission to be in the country. Khalid did have the correct paperwork. Better than that, he had a British passport. And the man who was with him, an Arab, had a Dubai passport and the correct visa to allow him entry into the United Kingdom. The passport was a fake, but it was a good one. The visa was real, though, obtained by the simple means of paying a thousand-dollar bribe to a corrupt HKBA official.

They were heading towards Westfield shopping mall in East London, close to the site of the 2012 Olympics. With three hundred shops, seventy restaurants and almost two million square feet of retail space, it was the largest urban shopping mall in Europe.

The two men spoke in Arabic, but they kept their voices low and whenever anyone of Arabic appearance was near they kept silent. Both men had spent three hours carrying out anti-surveillance procedures before meeting, including switching cabs and using the public transport system, and they were confident that they were not being followed.

‘It is busy, brother,’ said the Arab. His real name was Abu al Khayr, which means ‘one who does good’. From the standpoint of the men and women plotting terrorist atrocities in the West his name was appropriate because he was an al-Qaeda paymaster. He travelled the world and funnelled the organisation’s money to where it would do the most harm. He appeared on FBI, CIA and MI5 databases under several names but he had never been fingerprinted and none of the security services knew his true role within al-Qaeda.

‘It’s always busy,’ said Khalid. ‘Busiest at weekends but even on a quiet day there will be tens of thousands of people here.’ They took the escalators to the top floor and bought coffees at Pret A Manger, then sat at a table by the window so they could watch the crowds pass by.

‘So tell me about security,’ said Abu al Khayr.

Khalid chuckled softly. He nodded towards an obese woman with badly permed hair who was standing next to a gangly Asian by the escalators. Both wore black suits and had identification cards strapped to their forearms in clear plastic holders. They were deep in conversation. ‘That is your security,’ he said. ‘They are usually in pairs and are more involved with giving directions than they are with monitoring what is happening. There are other security guards wearing peaked hats but they are not armed and they do not appear to be well trained. They have radios but that is all.’

As they watched the pair, a woman in a full burka with two toddlers stopped to ask the Asian a question. The Asian pointed down towards Marks amp; Spencer.

‘There are a lot of sisters here,’ said Abu al Khayr.

‘This is London. There are sisters wherever you go,’ said Khalid. ‘It cannot be helped. One in five Londoners is now a Muslim. We can instruct our brothers to be careful but even so there are certain to be Muslim casualties.’

Abu al Khayr nodded. ‘Martyrs,’ he said. ‘There will be a place in Heaven for them.’ He looked up at a small black plastic dome in the ceiling, a few inches across. ‘There is CCTV everywhere,’ he said, a statement and not a question.

‘Every square foot is covered by CCTV cameras, every walkway, every shop, every restaurant, every entrance and exit. There is nowhere that is not covered. But that is their problem — there are too many to be monitored in real time. Once they are aware of an incident they can look at it, and they have all footage stored on hard drives, but in terms of monitoring real-time security they are virtually useless. By the time they realise what is going on, it will be too late. And at that point the more footage they get the better. Every time the world sees the video of the planes smashing into the World Trade Center it reminds them of our victory. So we want the world to see what happens here.’

They sat in silence as they drank their coffee, both deep in thought.

‘So tell me what you think we should do,’ said Abu al Khayr eventually.

Khalid finished his coffee. ‘Let me show you,’ he said.

The two men left Pret A Manger and went down one level. ‘This is the first floor,’ said Khalid. ‘On this level there are only two ways out, and one is through the Marks amp; Spencer store. From there they can get outside, so we will need a brother there to stop people leaving. But it is also our way out.’ He pointed down the mall towards the John Lewis store. ‘To the right of John Lewis there is a single door leading to car park A. That gives us direct access to the mall.’ He pointed up to the second floor. ‘There is no escape from upstairs. There are restaurants, the bowling alley and the cinema. But the top two floors are always less busy than the ground floor and the lower ground, so it is there we will strike first.’

They took the escalators down to the ground floor. Khalid took Abu al Khayr through the crowds to a set of glass doors that led to the bridge leading across the railway lines to Stratford Regional Station and the town centre. It was the way they had come into the mall. ‘This is the exit to the station,’ he said. ‘There are five doors, a single at each side and three double doors between them. Do you see the handles?’

Each door had a long vertical chrome pole as a handle. Abu al Khayr nodded.

‘All we need is a chain and a padlock,’ said Khalid. ‘It will take a matter of seconds and all of the doors will be locked shut. Once done no one can get out, and no one can get in.’

‘The glass is reinforced?’

‘It is. It will resist a sledgehammer.’

‘And how many exits are there in total?’

‘On the ground floor there are six. All have the same type of doors and all can be chained shut within seconds.’

There was a constant stream of shoppers entering and leaving the mall. ‘Won’t people try to stop them locking the doors?’ asked Abu al Khayr.

‘This entrance is the busiest,’ said Khalid. ‘We will have a brother wearing a security uniform.’ He grinned. ‘We already have two brothers on the security staff and hope to have more within the next few days. The owners are very keen to demonstrate their commitment to diversity.’