notice as he exited the Tube at Hyde Park Corner at the start of another working week. The morning after the Sunday concert the underground was crowded with early-morning commuters. The sky over London was unusually clear and blue as Mahmood walked through the Queen Elizabeth Gate. He headed past the bandstand and on to The Lookout, the former police observation point. As the last seconds of his life ticked away, he said a silent prayer, thanking Allah for the success of the operation and the moderate breeze that was coming from the west. Raising his fist in the air, he turned away from the Serpentine towards Mecca and shouted ‘ Allahu Akbar! God is great! Allahu Akbar! God is Great!!’ The blast sent shockwaves around the park as the wind picked up the cloud of deadly caesium chloride and whisked it towards the crowded city.
Ten minutes earlier, Mahmood’s companion, Abu Zayyat had walked out of Blackfriars Station and headed for an access to the roof of the building where he worked as a sales consultant, not far from St Paul’s Cathedral and overlooking the great city’s financial district. For one last time Zayyat stared out across the city he had lived in all his life, turned towards Mecca and as he raised his fist and shouted ‘ Allahu Akbar! God is Great!’ a second blast rocked the city. A cloud of superfine radioactive dust drifted out across Threadneedle Street, the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange. A short distance away, a third explosion destroyed the front of the Chinese Embassy in Portland Place. Apart from the death of the suicide bomber and some minor injuries to the staff in reception, there appeared to be little damage.
A little earlier, and over 16,000 kilometres away, the evening peak hour was beginning. Just before close of business, Muhammad, buoyed by early reports of an outbreak of sickness in the wealthy Brisbane suburb of Hamilton, took the lift to Level 9 at 79 Adelaide Street and detonated his deadly bomb. Seconds later, Abdullah and the other cell member gained access to the roof of the hotel overlooking Brisbane’s Central Railway Station. As the sound of sirens filled the streets of Brisbane, Abdullah paused to vomit again, and both men moved to the edge of the roof. They stared down on the clocktower of the station and the sandstone dome surrounding the Flame of Remembrance. Turning north-west to face Mecca and a fiery sun that was setting over the city’s rush hour, they raised their fists in unison and shouted ‘ Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! God is Great! God is Great!’. As they’d practised many times before, they pressed their detonators together.
Monika Spalding, the attractive CNN anchor, swivelled towards the camera with the red blinking light. Not yet aware of the explosions in Brisbane, she interrupted the coverage of the London bombings to cover a growing disaster closer to home. ‘In news just to hand,’ she said, ‘several more explosions have been reported in San Francisco and we cross live to our reporter Wayne Diaz at Fisherman’s Wharf. What can you tell us, Wayne?’
The CNN reporter was standing on Fisherman’s Wharf in front of the big wooden boatwheel where tens of thousands of tourists had their photo taken each year. Behind him people were running from their stores and restaurants, some crying hysterically.
‘Three explosions have been reported just minutes ago, Monika, and as you can see behind me, given what’s happened in London, panic has taken over.’ The camera panned towards the centre of the CBD where the streets were gridlocked as people tried to flee the stricken city.
‘Two of the explosions occurred on the tops of buildings quite close to where I’m standing and a third when a security guard stopped a young man of Middle Eastern appearance outside the Chinese Embassy, also very close to here in Laguna Street. There are fears that this might be part of a well-coordinated worldwide warning that was foreshadowed by the terrorist, Dr Khalid Kadeer. Back to you, Monika.’ The images of the chaos in San Francisco faded as the CNN newsroom crossed to their London bureau.
At first the London authorities had reported that the only casualty from the blasts in Hyde Park and the city’s financial district had been the suicide bombers themselves, and there had been speculation that both bombs had gone off prematurely before the bombers had had a chance to enter one of the teahouses in the Park or the office block crowded with workers. The great city hardly missed a beat. The tourists had been inconvenienced when the park had been sealed off but the authorities were quick to re-open it, restoring as much normality to city life as possible so the terrorists were not seen to be winning. The bombers had detonated their bombs just ten seconds apart, the first at 7.50 a.m., but at the same time Hyde Park was being re-opened, Dr Paul Templeton, the Head of Porton Down telephoned the Prime Minister with the unwelcome news. These were no ordinary bombs. Clouds of radiation were being detected in busy Oxford Street and Park Lane in Mayfair, Shaftesbury Avenue in Soho and as far east as Fenchurch Street Station and the Tower of London.
The CNN anchors, Monika Spalding and Efram Brooks, were used to covering world catastrophes, and this looked like a routine terrorist attack that had failed. They crossed to CNN’s London correspondent Michael Duffy.
‘What can you tell us, Michael?’ Monika asked. The image of CNN’s news desk faded to that of a tall man in a woollen overcoat and black scarf standing in Hyde Park with a double line of London plane trees devoid of leaves in the background.
‘This attack still has authorities puzzled, Monika. Apart from the suicide bombers themselves and some minor injuries in the Chinese Embassy, no other casualties have been reported. Although, as you can hear, there are a large number of sirens sounding and the police presence in the city is increasing.’
‘A fear of more attacks?’
‘Perhaps, but we’ve had no word on that yet, Monika.’
‘And these bombs went off prematurely?’
‘That was the authorities’ first impression but that theory is coming under increasing pressure from several experts, particularly as the bombs went off within seconds of one another. We’re also getting some unconfirmed reports of large numbers of people turning up at doctors’ surgeries and hospitals with extreme vomiting, nausea and diarrhoea. It would seem that most, if not all of these people either attended the ‘Peace Rocks’ concert in Trafalgar Square on Sunday night or they’re from the Hampton area.’
‘Michael,’ Monika said, breaking in. ‘We’re going to have to leave it there, we’re getting a feed from the Prime Minister’s Office in Downing Street.’ The pictures of Hyde Park faded to figures in biowarfare suits outside Number 10 – suits that were entirely useless against gamma radiation. Those images were replaced with a stony-faced Prime Minister, flanked by the Home Secretary and the Mayor of London.
‘Until we know the extent of this situation the authorities have advised that it would be prudent to evacuate the city. The Home Office will coordinate the evacuation and we’re appealing for calm. I can confirm that a radioactive substance, caesium chloride, has been detected in the bomb blasts and we’re now monitoring the extent of the plume. I’m also advised that caesium chloride has been found in both of the fountains in Trafalgar Square, and in the water supply around Hampton. We’re confident that the radioactive water is confined to the Hampton area and is unlikely to affect any areas beyond that. The Home Secretary will confirm this as soon as possible.’
The Prime Minister’s words fell on deaf ears. With every television and radio station in the country broadcasting the disaster live, the news of the dirty bombs had spread through the city at the speed of light. There was a silent and unseen killer in the air and the stoic citizens of London were unnerved. The terror was palpable. People rushed onto the city’s streets, jamming the tube stations and fighting to get on the buses. Supermarket shelves were emptied of bottled water as panic overtook the entire country. Stocks on the London Stock Exchange plummeted.
Monika Spalding was obviously shaken as she turned to her co-host. ‘And we have some early reports of what looks like a similar situation in Australia, Efram?’
‘This is increasingly looking like a coordinated worldwide attack, Monika,’ Efram said, turning towards the camera. ‘We cross now to Brisbane, Australia, where more explosions have been reported in that city. What can you tell us, Kimberly?’
Efram’s swarthy face was replaced by a young CNN reporter standing beside the Brisbane River.
‘That’s right, Efram. We’ve had a total of three explosions here. Two on the top of a building in the centre of the city and the third in the Chinese Consulate on the ninth floor of a building in Adelaide Street.’ The reporter’s face faded to images of people running towards Roma Street Station, a sea of blue and red flashing lights of ambulances, police cars and fire engines in the background. In another image, a crowd of people, some of them crying, some vomiting, some nearly hysterical, were queued at the entrance to the city’s largest hospital. These images faded to Parliament House in Canberra and a Prime Minister who was clearly flustered.
‘The evacuation of Brisbane is purely a precaution,’ the Prime Minister insisted in answer to one journalist’s question from the packed media conference.
‘Do we know how they got into the city’s water supply?’ asked another.
