Close up, Kate’s smile and her twinkling eyes had a disarming effect. Rafi wasn’t accustomed to such closeness; he moved back a pace to give himself a bit of breathing space and stepped straight into the path of the commissioner, who had entered the room at some speed, aware no doubt that he and David were running two minutes late.
‘Sorry sir.’ Rafi noticed that he’d scuffed the commissioner’s gleaming shoes.
‘No harm done,’ came the reply, ‘Let’s get started!’
Rafi turned and looked at Kate whose smile was bordering on a chuckle. She looked at him, and whispered, ‘Whoops!’
Kate and Rafi sat opposite each other. The commissioner looked around the boardroom table. ‘How are you progressing? As we agreed at our last meeting, this is crunch time. We will have to inform our political masters sooner rather than later. Kate, please update us.’
Kate looked at the faces around the table. They looked haggard. She just hoped she could do herself justice and convey the gravity of the position to the commissioner. The chips were down and she didn’t like what she was going to report.
‘Sir, let me summarise the position. Many things have happened since our recent phone conversation. We firmly believe that the missile attacks will come in the first couple of hours of daylight tomorrow morning. Through David’s Estonian contact, Colonel Matlik, we have confirmation that the terrorists have five Kornet anti-tank missile launchers and three or four missiles per launcher. As you know, these missiles are lethal pieces of equipment. In addition, we now find that they also have four South African 60 mm Vektor mortars and eighty high-explosive shells.’
Kate paused. ‘We’ve narrowed down the potential targets and I’ll come back to them in a minute.’ The commissioner nodded.
‘Following helpful discussions with the Immigration Office, we have identified two fast track and legitimate ways of getting UK visas, which the terrorists have used to get five people into the UK. Colonel Matlik and his contacts in Moscow have identified four as being former Chechen militia. We have been advised to treat Messrs Miromov, Dudayev, Popovskaya and Kowshaya with extreme caution. We are told that their training and experience is such that they’ll give the SAS a run for their money. The fifth person, a journalist called Kaleem Shah, is ex-Sandhurst and has experience of war zones in the Middle East and urban warfare.’
Kate paused again. ‘We believe that each Chechen mercenary has a Kornet missile launcher, a Vektor mortar and two targets. Jeremy has been chatting to a senior contact in the SAS, who advises that they are likely to be operating as individuals. As far as the fifth missile launcher is concerned, we think it is for their high speed getaway vessel, Golden Sundancer. She is in the North Atlantic, heading, we believe, for a rendezvous point off the north Scottish coast tomorrow evening.’
The commissioner sat bolt upright, unmoving.
‘Nine trained suicide bombers have been identified. Kaleem Shah is running them. Jeremy’s colleagues at MI5 have traced five of them, but unfortunately Mr Shah and four of the suicide bombers are unaccounted for.’
Kate looked at her notes. ‘Moving on to the ringleaders -Jameel Furud, Basel Talal, Maryam Vynckt and Sheikh Akram Tufayl – MI5 has them under constant but discrete surveillance. There is a fifth possible ringleader: Miti Lakhani, who MI5 believes runs their suicide bombers’ training base in Africa. Unfortunately he has vanished. Maryam and the sheikh are behaving normally. Jameel is enjoying his golf at a luxury hotel in Marrakech and Basel is on board their getaway vessel Golden Sundancer, off Iceland. Three of the terrorists’ deep sea trawlers are in port at Peterhead, Great Yarmouth and Troon and are ready to put to sea. This gives them three exit points.’
She looked across at her two bosses. ‘Our current informed guesses are that terrorist number one will attack Hartlepool Nuclear Power Station, plus one further target currently unknown.’ There was an audible drawing in of breath as the word nuclear was uttered. ‘They have a vacant industrial property which overlooks the power station,’ she explained.
‘The second will attack the St Fergus gas terminal and storage tanks and the North Sea oil pumping station at Cruden Bay. Both are close to Peterhead, where the terrorists own two vacant industrial properties. Number three will attack Heysham nuclear power station on the Lancashire coast, where they own a property with a clear line of sight. We think that he will also attack either Sellafield nuclear reprocessing centre or Hunterston “B” nuclear power station.’
The room was silent.
‘And terrorist number four will attack the Bacton gas terminal. They own an industrial building in North Walsham, a few miles away. His second target is still unknown. This could be Sizewell nuclear power station, or the Grays liquid petroleum gas storage depot on the banks of the Thames near to the Dartford crossing. But our instincts tell us the missing target will be in London. We had the marshalling yards at Willesden at the top of our list, but MI5 report that there are currently no nuclear containers there, so we are still looking. We have outstanding leads on some development properties that the terrorists own and hope they will fill in some of the gaps.’
Kate paused and took a sip of water. ‘Missile launcher number five, we believe, is on board Golden Sundancer. Its targets are unknown, but at this point our view is that it is for defensive purposes only.’
Kate shifted in her seat. ‘Time is not on our side. The facts, as we and MI5 read them, point to the attacks coming early tomorrow morning, shortly after dawn. In the meantime MI5 has its operatives and anti-terrorist officers en route to these locations. They will remain very low profile.’
The frown on the commissioner’s face deepened.
‘Now for the terrorists’ overall game plan, as we see it.’ Kate halted briefly, not so much for effect, but rather to collect her thoughts. ‘Rafi and Aidan have been looking at the wider picture. This is where things get truly scary. We have reason to believe that the terrorists are trying to engineer the collapse of our already weakened financial system and UK plc. This, we believe, is their primary objective. By so doing, they expect to reap huge profits in the derivatives market.’
Kate paused again and looked across at the commissioner and the chief superintendent. They were looking shocked and sitting bolt upright, like schoolmasters during the saying of grace. Her face was unsmiling. ‘We have confirmation that the terrorists control two public quoted companies and ten private companies. These businesses employ over 250,000 people. Through these companies they have in their pockets a number of influential individuals who MI5 advise us are being paid exorbitant fees as consultants or non-executive board members. Included within the 300 or so people are: Members of Parliament, special advisers to the Government and people in strategic senior positions. It is MI5’s opinion that a number of these people could be the terrorists’ eyes and ears, and could therefore be invisible sleepers.
Kate looked at John, then Aidan ‘The terrorists have set up their public sector outsourcing businesses and six other financial institutions to go bust following their attacks. And Aidan says that the terrorists stand to make at least?50 billion if all goes to plan, which will add to the financial chaos.’
Kate glanced down the table at the stony faces of the two chiefs. ‘Now for the better news,’ she said, with the beginnings of a smile on her tired face. ‘Unbelievably, we… Actually, I should say Rafi – have come up with a plan which the Government could use to calm and protect the financial markets. Unfortunately, his and Aidan’s cynical view is that our political masters will instinctively move into spin, damage limitation and procrastination mode. This is what the terrorists are expecting. If the politicians procrastinate, all too quickly the downward momentum will become too great for even the Bank of England to stop. However, if – and it’s a massive if – the Government can keep the markets steady, we can beat them at their own game. If interest rates and gilt prices can be held stable, the terrorists’ derivative positions will become untenable and they and their co-conspirators will rapidly face huge losses. The scale of such losses would set terrorism back several years and even bankrupt many of their financial backers.’