Soft Target

cop?’

‘Because he was cracking on he was a fucking hitman, that’s why. And we followed him to a cop shop in the City.’

‘Leman Street?’

‘I don’t know what road it was. Near Aldgate station.’

‘And Nelson was pretending to be a hitman?’

Anderson fought another bout of nausea. ‘I need a doctor,’ he said.

‘No, you need me,’ said the cop. ‘I’m the only one standing between you and a life sentence. You tried to kill a cop, remember.’

‘A fucking supercop, that’s what he is. Who the hell is he anyway?’

‘Kerr didn’t tell you?’

‘When we followed him from Manchester, we thought he was a hitman. Angie had paid him to put a bullet in Charlie. We saw her and Nelson get busted, then Nelson got a get-out-of-jail-free card. We followed him to London and he reported to a cop shop.’

‘That was when?’

‘Tuesday.’

‘And what time did he arrive at the cop shop?’

‘Four o’clock. Four thirty, maybe.’

‘And you left it until Thursday before you made your move?’

‘Charlie had things to do up north.’

The ward doors crashed open and a middle-aged Chinese man in a white coat hurried over the linoleum floor towards Anderson’s bed. ‘What the hell is going on here?’ he asked, in a perfect Home Counties accent.

‘I’m just having a few words with Mr Anderson,’ said the detective.

‘He’s a sick man,’ said the doctor.

‘He almost killed a policeman.’

‘And once he’s stabilised you can charge him. But at the moment he’s my patient.’

‘I’m done anyway,’ said the detective.

‘Yes, you are,’ said the doctor.

The detective stared at him, long and hard. The doctor tried to meet his gaze but his face reddened. He began to busy himself with the equipment monitoring Anderson’s vital signs.

‘So that’s it?’ said Anderson. ‘I’m in the clear?’

‘Fingers crossed,’ said the detective. He left the ward, his black leather shoes squeaking with each step.

It was only as the detective barged out through the double doors that Anderson realised the man hadn’t identified himself, and the warrant card had been too close to his face to read.

The name on the passport that the man was using was Muhammad Zahid. It was a good name, but it wasn’t the name that he had been born with. The passport was Iraqi, but the man was Palestinian. When he had joined the ranks of the shahid a video would be shown on Arab TV stations across the Middle East proclaiming his love for the Palestinian people and his hatred for the infidels who aided the Israeli murderers. The man calling himself Zahid hadn’t been in Palestine for five years and hadn’t seen his family for six. Ever since his Arab brothers had achieved martyrdom during the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the West’s intelligence service had gone into overdrive. Suspected terrorists were watched, hunted and held without trial. Phones were tapped, emails were read, letters were opened. There was no such thing as secrecy any more. The Americans wanted to photograph, fingerprint and take DNA samples from every human being on the planet, but until they did, all that a man like the Palestinian needed was a valid passport with a valid visa. The immigration officer at Heathrow’s Terminal Three was underpaid and overworked: he had only seconds to look at the passport and compare the photograph in it with the man in front of him. The resemblance was close enough and the passport was genuine, so the Palestinian was waved through. The immigration officer even welcomed him back to the United Kingdom. It had been so easy. The British were so trusting, so gullible.

The passport the Palestinian was using belonged to an Iraqi whose brother had been murdered by Saddam Hussein. The man had fled with his wife and two young sons before the Iraqi secret police could visit him in the middle of the night. The British had granted the family asylum, and permanent residency in the United Kingdom. The Iraqi hated the British as much as the Palestinian did, but he was happy to take advantage of them. He had received a new hip, courtesy of the National Health Service, lived in a spacious three-bedroomed council flat in Notting Hill, with a balcony and use of a communal garden, his children were receiving a free education and would, hopefully, go to university one day. The Iraqi didn’t need his passport any more. He had no plans to leave the country. Iraq was a hellish place run by the infidels, but even if it wasn’t he wouldn’t want to return. In Britain he was richer than he would ever be in Iraq. His children would soon be granted British citizenship, and they already spoke with British accents.

The Iraqi wasn’t grateful for what the British had done for him. He saw it as his right. The British helped the Americans, who murdered and tortured Muslims around the world. He owed the infidels no loyalty. His only loyalty was to Islam and his Arab brothers. When he was approached by the Saudi one summer afternoon as he strolled through a pretty London square, he didn’t take much convincing to hand over his passport. He didn’t even want to know how it would be used. All he knew was that his Arab brothers were preparing to strike at the heart of the infidels and lending his passport was the least he could do. Even if the authorities ever traced it, all the Iraqi had to do was say it had been stolen. That was one of the benefits of living in Britain: it was so easy to lie to the police. Unlike in Iraq, where the secret police could torture and kill with impunity, the British police had to call him ‘sir’ and would get him a lawyer, free of charge, if he needed one.

The Palestinian had been in the UK for two weeks, and he had spent all that time in the bedsit that had been found for him. Food and drink was brought to him by a man who never spoke. Another man – a Saudi, the Palestinian thought – came after a week, took measurements of his chest and waist and gave him some newspaper cuttings about the latest atrocities on the West Bank. Five schoolchildren killed by an Israeli rocket. A baby shot in crossfire. A student killed by a rubber bullet that hit him in the throat. The Palestinian didn’t need the newspaper stories to fuel his hatred for the West. That had been forged more than ten years earlier when the Israelis had thrown him and his family out of their house, then bulldozed it. His father had fought back and been shot in the leg. The doctors had amputated it above the knee and he had never worked again. A year later, the Palestinian’s elder brother had died when Israeli soldiers had fired into a crowd of protestors, and his mother had died of a broken heart six months later. The Palestinian hated the Israelis, he hated the Americans, who funded the Israelis, and he hated the British, who kowtowed to every demand the Americans made. It was time to hit the British, to show them what it was like to have people die in the streets. To make them suffer as the Palestinians had suffered.

There was a knock and the Palestinian got up off the prayer mat. He unlocked the door. It was the Saudi.

The Saudi opened his bag and took out a canvas vest with bulky packages in pockets spaced around it at even intervals. Red and blue wires ran from the pockets.

The Saudi helped the Palestinian fit the vest and tightened it with straps and buckles. The button to detonate the explosives was at the end of a white wire. The Palestinian tucked it away in one of the pockets. He knew how the vest worked: he’d been on a training course that was part technical, part indoctrination. He hadn’t needed brainwashing: he’d welcomed the opportunity to join the ranks of the shahid. Once he had given his life for the jihad,he would be with his mother and brother in heaven, his father, too, when his time came.

The Palestinian put on his coat over the vest and fastened the buttons. The Saudi walked round him several times. He made a small adjustment to the shoulders, then handed the Palestinian an envelope. He picked up his bag and left. ‘Allahu akbar,’ he whispered, as the door closed. God is great.

The Palestinian opened the envelope. Inside, there was a single sheet of paper. It was a photocopy of a map of the London Underground system. One station had been circled in red ink. King’s Cross. And written in the margin was a time: five o’clock.

The Palestinian looked at the cheap clock on the wall by the door. It was a quarter to one. He had plenty of time. He knelt to pray.

Ken Swift swiped his card and pushed through the revolving door. His boots squeaked as he walked down the corridor, head swivelling to left and right. He popped his head into the COMMS room and saw Mike Sutherland