‘Good idea,’ agreed John. ‘What scares me is that the terrorists have resources which rival those of a small to medium sized country. We should not underestimate the damage they are capable of inflicting.’
Kate’s mouth was wide open. ‘Thank you for describing the scale of the bad news. This is seriously frightening. But first things first – we have a lot of loose ends to tidy up and time is short. In order of priority, we must stop the terrorists’ attacks or at least significantly limit the damage. And then, Rafi and Aidan, we need you to come up with a solution to stop the markets going into meltdown.’
‘And third, pigs might fly,’ added John.
‘No, thirdly we’ve got to break this appalling news to our bosses – and soon.’ Kate stood up, looking pale and drawn. ‘Aidan, thanks for your excellent work.’
Rafi had been thinking quietly about the practicalities of getting the Government and the Bank of England to move quickly. ‘One last item, please? Devising a strategy to avert the financial chaos will take time, and time is a commodity we don’t have! I’d like to suggest, at our meeting with the chiefs, that we get permission to bring in a small team of financial experts, who could draw up a briefing document for the decision makers at the Treasury and Bank of England.’
‘Good idea,’ replied Kate.
Jeremy returned, positively bouncing. ‘Who’s been clever boy? I’ve had a most fruitful time with Dominique, the manager at the travel agent. We looked at the typical characteristics of the tickets they bought. The vast majority were low-cost packages to locations throughout Africa and were mostly last minute bookings on flights which had unsold seats… The typical visit was between one and three months.’
He smiled. ‘Then I got Dominique to see if there were any tickets which were out of the ordinary. She wasn’t impressed, as there were thousands of them. Specifically, she went searching for business class and full cost tickets, and trips where there were prearranged stopovers. My logic was that if they were recruiting bombers they’d look after them and want them to go to a training camp as well as do their voluntary work.’
Jeremy smiled. ‘We have ten. Yes, ten individuals who were given favoured treatment by Basel and Jameel’s charity. And guess what? One of the names that came out of the computer was that of a Ima Adwafeeq or, if one puts the space in the right place, Imaad Wafeeq, the Bishopsgate bomber! I’ve passed all the names to my colleagues, who will send through as much information as they can find on each of them. As we speak all the suspects are being traced and will be put under surveillance.’
Jeremy beamed, after a ripple of applause. ‘The offer of coffee and doughnuts did the trick. Within half an hour she’d gone back three years and identified all the people who fitted our search criteria. There were literally hundreds of flights that matched. In a tick she had them sorted alphabetically. The number of different names on the list wasn’t that great – just below fifty – but only ten had a pre-booked stopover in Somalia. When I pointed out Imaad Wafeeq’s name, she went white. She thought I was there to prove she was involved. It took me five minutes to calm her down and to emphasise the importance of keeping what we had found totally confidential.’
‘As a matter of curiosity, where exactly were the stopovers in Somalia?’ enquired Emma.
‘Mogadishu,’ replied Jeremy.
‘Hold on a minute – where was it that the other PhD student, Miti someone, came from?’
‘What a good memory you’ve got,’ said Jeremy. ‘You are spot on. Miti Lakhani’s family have a business operation in Mogadishu. I wish I had remembered that before you did,’ he said with a smile in Emma’s direction.
Colonel Matlik was punctual. At 5.15 p.m. Kate’s phone rang. She was pleased to hear his telltale accent on the line.
‘Good evening, I have more news for you,’ he said, in his customary laconic manner. ‘I received the names and photos you emailed me. You have caused quite a stir. We looked at the mugshots and straight away identified three of them as being highly undesirable. I hope it’s OK – I bounced their details on to the FSB, the Russian Secret Service. The phone lines between here and Moscow have been red-hot. It seems that four of them are on their most wanted list! They are using false identities. In reality, they are: Rudnik Miromov and Dakka Dudayev, two former Chechen army officers. The Russians lost track of them ten months ago. The other two are: Aslan Popovskaya and Sergy Kowshaya, whose last known occupation was as part of a specialist Chechen hit squad – they also disappeared. Be advised: all four individuals should be treated with extreme caution. They have no scruples and are trained in everything from unarmed combat and heavy machine guns, to missile launchers and high explosives. In the words of my Russian friends these four are “wermin” – the sooner they can be exterminated, the better! Kornet missiles in their hands are a recipe for disaster.’
‘I see,’ said Kate hesitantly.
Kate, I must tell you, the next person on your list had the Russians rolling with laughter. He’s an Arab, from the Gulf originally. Kaleem Shah trained as an officer cadet at your army’s Sandhurst! No doubt your records will confirm this and where he went subsequently. They have him down, until a year ago, as being attached to an international news corps as their minder in the battle zones of the Middle East. We have nothing untoward on the other names you e-mailed me. I have asked a colleague to email you all the details we have on these undesirables. He is sending you copies of both the Russian files and our translation of them. I hope that they help. Sorry to sound like an overprotective father, but if the Russians say they’re real shits, tell your SAS to treat them with the utmost caution.’
‘Colonel, thank you,’ said Kate.
‘Unfortunately, I have some further information from the manager of the rifle ranges. It is not news you will want to hear. In addition to the Kornet missile launchers, he delivered four South African 60 mm Vektor mortars and eighty high-explosive shells. They’re compact and deadly. Their barrel length is only 650 mm, but they have a range of up to 2 km if the firer opts for a ballistic trajectory.’
‘Sorry?’ queried Kate.
‘The explosive round detonates in the air above the target,’ explained the colonel. ‘In the hands of a professional, the firing rate, is twenty shells a minute. If aimed straight at its target the range drops to half a kilometre and the shells can go through 500 mm of armour or over one metre of reinforced concrete. Basically, they are nasty little weapons – rather good at attacking soft targets, I would suggest.’
‘Such as?’
‘In ballistic trajectory mode, their blast radius is thirty metres. They would work a treat against,’ the colonel paused, ‘Fuel tanks – oil and gas storage plants in particular.’
‘That fits in with a couple of the targets we’ve identified,’ said Kate. ‘Your information is most timely and thank you for all the trouble you’ve taken.’
‘No problem; we Europeans have a duty to protect one another,’ came the reply. ‘Look after yourself.’
‘I’ll try to,’ replied Kate, ending the call.
Kate raised her voice for all to hear. ‘Our worst fears have been confirmed. There are four Chechen mercenaries on the terrorists’ payroll.’ She picked up the phone again and dialled Neil Gunton, Jeremy’s boss. Normally she would have waited for Jeremy to liaise with his boss, but time was critical. She got through on the third ring.
‘Neil Gunton speaking,’ said a gravelly voice.
‘Good afternoon, Kate Adams here.’ She cut to the chase. ‘The names Jeremy sent you earlier from Immigration – how are you getting on?’
‘So far we haven’t managed to get much on them. Our analysts suggest that three, possibly four, of them are Chechen. However, we do have chapter and verse on Kaleem Shah. We trained him at Sandhurst. He’s been working in Lebanon and the Middle East as a journalist with a number of the international networks.’