The Wrath of Shakira Page 9

  Wael nodded his head vigorously.

  “So your name is Abu Wael, you’re not a British citizen; where were you born?”

  “Africa.”

  “Big country Africa, narrow it right down.”

  “Mogadishu Somalia.”

  “That’s one hell of a place to have come from, you been in trouble with any governments and I would like you to think very carefully before you answer this question.”

  Abu Wael’s mind raced frantically, how much does this infidel know about me?

  Abu Wael decided on the easy answer, “Yes.”

  “Where and what did you do?”

  Again, Abu Wael paused; this seemed an unusual line of questioning, seeing as he was here for atrocities in the UK.

  As Max waited for the answer he looked for the tell tale signs of a lie, he observed minor twitches of muscles especially around the mouth and eyes the delay in answering the question, his suspect was contemplating a lie.

  “Okay,” replied Wael “I have been involved in wars in Africa and I have killed people it goes with the territory”.

  Good answer Max thought, he‘s telling the truth but concealing the Police officer he killed in South Africa,

  “When and how did you enter the country?”

  “A week ago; I came in on a freighter that docked in Southampton from Luanda.”

  “So you came into this country on a freighter that docked in Southampton a week ago; tell me in your own words what you did, whom you were in contact with from that point up to today when you were captured?”

  For the half-hour, Abu Wael detailed his movements and people he came into contact with during that period.

  Max had let him talk un-interrupted for about fifteen minutes, watching his captor’s body language and showing a steady mild interest enough to keep him talking.

  After the fifteen minutes Max had begun asking questions to clarify parts of Abu Wael’s story, deliberately varying it to see Wael’s response.

  A person who is telling the truth often looks a little frustrated that you have not quite understood what they say.

  A person who is lying may look anxious as they try to stay ahead of themselves and not give the game away, also they will concentrate very hard as they try to hear what you are saying and replay their story to check for matching of detail, they may get particularly agitated and try to stop you as they realize they may easily be caught Max had seen the later on one occasion, when he had pressed him about Ali Hussein.

  Abu Wael had denied knowledge of this man and it was when Max had described him and mentioned the limp that he had detected Wael’s agitation and state of anxiousness, before his captor could answer Max said, “You have met this man but you didn’t know his name.”

  Abu Wael finally conceded that his captor was extremely efficient in the art of interrogation and coupled with the physical threat he capitulated.

  “Yes I have met this man in a house in London; he gave me the device for the airport.”

  “Do you know the address?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Could you take us to it?”

  “All I know is it is in your city of London not far from their Mosque.”

  Max stood up and turned the recoding system off; he walked out of the room, a few minutes later Abu Wael had been returned to his cell.

  Saracen Street

  Saracen Street off East India Dock Road

  East London

  Lat = 51 degrees, 30.7 minutes North

  Long = 0 degrees, 1.3 minutes West

  The two OSC soldiers were sitting in the Gold Ford Granada in Saracen Street having tailed the Citroen there Four hours ago; the occupant had gone into a terraced house, number nine on the right just near to the junction with Canton Street, which was over their right shoulder twenty-yards away.

  The house backed onto a school and another team was situated watching both ends of the alley running the length of the houses.

  No one else had gone into or out of number nine.

  Following Max’s interrogation of Abu Wael, the teams were aware that the suspect in number nine was one Omar Al Bazzaz, and that he had come to the notice of the Police on one occasion twenty-four years ago for a minor shoplifting offence.

  Omar had been on the phone to Hussein, they had agreed that Abu Wael had been taken and would no doubt spill his guts to his captors.

  This safe house was an armoury with explosives and various handguns and assault rifles, Omar had contacted one of his recruits and was awaiting a van to arrive with men to clear the house of these weapons and relocate them.

  At Three-thirty, that afternoon the school was coming out from the entrance in Canton Street just as the van arrived.

  Roy Smith was on the scene with two teams, all were in their unique; assault camouflage uniform consisting of three colour’s; the base colour was a dark slate grey inter spaced with a lighter grey known as sea storm and a light blue known as blue chalk creating a disruption pattern.

  Covering their torsos was the Personal armour for ground troops, PASGT. This also included a combat helmet, with an integrated communications system.

  Each man carried the Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine gun with a detachable aluminum sound suppressor, with a curved capacity magazine, containing thirty; nine millimeter cartridges.

  Their side arms were the nine-millimeter compact Glock-19 with a fifteen round magazine and the advanced combat knife with a seven-inch blade with a half serrated cutting edge finished in black.

  They observed the box van arriving with several men whom had begun loading a Varity of sized boxes from the house into the vehicle. The black team were located twenty-five yards west of Canton Street, Blue team were situated at the top end of Saracen Street on the junction with Hind Grove, and number Nine was Fifty yards south on their left.

  Both teams were awaiting the Go signal; however, the children coming out of school had put a hold on that.

  The Team in the Gold coloured Ford Granada had been designated White team and were still eyeballing the house and relaying Intel to Roy Smith.

  The team in the alleyway were the green team.

  Just as the school children were emerging a lone figure had limped along Canton Street and was now in the phone box opposite the school entrance eighty-yards East of Saracen’s Street, Hussein was scanning the area with a pair of Ten by Twenty-five Mag pocket binoculars, his attention had been quickly drawn to two dark coloured Range Rover’s both had tinted glass making it difficult to observe the occupants; he dialled the number for number Nine Saracens street.

  Omar picked the phone up, “it’s me,” Hussein said, look up the street and tell me if you have any unusual vehicles parked there.”

  Omar placed the receiver on the table and walked out the front door, the men were still loading the boxes of munitions, and he casually looked to his left and then to his right nothing that unusual, he focused his eyes to the top of the street and noticed Two dark coloured Range Rover’s, he returned to the phone, “I have had a look,”

  “Anything out of place or unusual?”

  “Nothing really.”

  “Well there are Two Dark coloured Range Rovers around the corner in Canton Street and they are certainly don’t fit in,” replied Hussein.

  Omar replied, “don’t you mean at the top of Saracen Street?”

  “Omar; I’m in a phone box in Canton Street opposite the school and I’m looking at them know in Canton Street.”

  Several seconds past before Omar spoke, “How did they find us so quickly?” “Abu Wael had no knowledge of this safe house.”

  “That can wait till later Omar; you’re going to be hit Hard, and I’ll bet on the Holly Qur’an scriptures there waiting for the school children to disperse, listen Omar this is what
I want you to do.”

  Two-minutes later the White team in the Ford Granada observed a lot of frenzied movement, the van doors had been closed and three of the vans loaders had jumped in the front, the front doors to number nine had been slammed shut, the van moved off at a rapid pace towards Canton Street, blaring its horn at the school crossing warden helping the children across the junction, they began to scatter as one of the occupants threw canisters of tear gas out of the van dispersing their contents into the atmosphere,

  The van bolted south across the crossroads intersection of Canton Street towards the A 13 East India dock road.

  The White team had been on the two-way radio relaying the Events, Roy was in the lead vehicle of the Black team in Canton Street studying a street map when he observed the van speeding across the junction, horn blaring and canisters being thrown from it.

  He quickly ordered the second Black team vehicle to pursue the van, followed quickly by the order to mask up.

  As both the black and blue teams emerged from their vehicles, their senses were hit by the resonance of gunfire.

  In the alleyway at the back of number nine a gun battle was in full swing between the green team and four of Omar’s men, green team taking heavy fire, from automatic weapons.

  They were holding the terrorists back from escaping across the school playground.

  Canton Street had become a nightmare for Roy and his team, screaming children and adults were running blindly eyes running with tears, sneezing and coughing with some bent over vomiting.

  White team had vacated the Ford Granada and had moved on the front of the house kicking down the door, only to be met by sustained automatic gunfire forcing them to retreat either side of the open doorway.

  The blue teams had split, one unit was legging it down to the white team’s position and the other was coming down the alleyway from the North end laying down fire with their Heckler and Koch MP5 assault rifles supporting the Green team.

  From the constant live chatter on the two-way radios Roy split his team; one section went to the South end of the alleyway to back up Green team and the second had moved down to the school gate entrance Canton Street picking their way through the disorientated pedestrians into the school playground, two of them began herding the children and adults over to the east side away from the gun battle, they kicked a five-foot high wooden fence panel down and began to marshal the school children and some adults through into the rear garden that lead down a path to a gated entrance into Upper North Street.

  The other two had assumed the prone position on the playground floor and had been targeting the terrorist with an immediate result of a kill with the first two rounds.

  The remaining three terrorists at the rear had been taken by surprise by the flanking manoeuvre and had moved back into the garden area affording them more cover; their comrade was lying in a puddle of his own blood from a headshot.

  Omar had been in the hallway directing fire at the broken front door he moved through the house to the back and picked up a metal box off grenades.

  He handed the box to one of the remaining three, use these and frag the unbelievers.

  Roy was positioned in Canton Street on the south side of the alleyway when he heard the cry over the radio, “grenades!”

  The three terrorists at the rear of the house had each lobbed a grenade two had gone up and down the alley and the third was thrown over into the school playground.

  The OSC teams in the alleyway were able to secure cover by shielding behind walls when the grenades detonated receiving falling debris.

  The two lying down on the school playground floor were much more exposed as the grenade landed several feet away, they had received training on dealing with grenades; always the first option was to fall behind cover in this case the second option was all they had, they both spun around on their stomachs facing the other way with their feet facing the grenade to present the absolute smallest surface area at the same time covering their ears, the playground was also relatively level.

  A typical grenade explodes upwards and outwards in a sphere shape the detonation came a few seconds later both men felt the ground beneath them resonate followed by debris falling down on them, the other two black team men had taken cover inside the garden as the last of the school children and adults had filed out into Upper North street.

  The two prone troops could not feel any obvious signs of trauma to their bodies, they spun back round moved the firing selector to fully automatic checked the firing line and target area was clear of friend-lies and poured nearly fifty rounds travelling at around thirteen- Hundred feet per second between them and the three terrorists at the rear of the house.

  The first few rounds had immediate affect with a fatal head shot to one and another receiving gunshot wounds to his shoulder.

  The surviving terrorist threw himself to the ground and aimlessly fired a full clip of rounds across the playground that spattered the rear fencing panels of the houses on the other side.

  The two black team members moved quickly from the cover of the garden and both hit the ground in the prone position five meters either side of their team-mates, bringing their weapons up to bear on the rear of the house, before they could fire Roy Smith barked an order into the two-way radio system, “Seize firing... All units seize firing.”

  For a few split seconds there was an unreal quietness often experienced by those whom have been engaged in this type of firefight, this was quickly broken by the distance sound of wailing emergency service sirens.

  The OSC teams commenced a rapid weapons check on their respective firearms.

  Hussein had observed it all from the protection of his phone box he dialled the number for the house, it rang for nearly half a minute, Omar had not heard it ringing as his ears were still drumming from the noise of the firefight.

  He picked it up, Hussein spoke, “you are totally surrounded and outgunned by a Special Forces unit; are you and your men ready to make the ultimate sacrifice in the name of Allah?”

  “Omar did not need to think about this question, his reply came swiftly but calmly back, “today is our judgement day we will go to paradise and take the infidels with us.”

  Hussein spoke, “Then go my brother and someday I will join you; there is no God but Allah and Allah is most great,”

  Omar replied, “Praise be to Allah.”

  Hussein replaced the phone; looked about him and slowly limped East along Canton Street.

  During the lull Roy had managed to give a sit-rep to Max via the radio, a call had been put through to Commissioner Dawson asking for his Police units to set up a perimeter encompassing the following roads, Upper north Road South down to East India Dock road, West to Canton Street North west into Pelling Street North East along Farrance street, east across Lindfield street completing the cordon backs at Upper North Street roughly a half-mile Perimeter.

  The blue team that had run down Saracen Street had knocked on doors evacuating the occupants up the road into Hind road where the police were now moving them away from the firefight.

  Roy received a call from Max that the Police Firearms branch SO-19 would be on site very shortly and how he wanted them deployed.

  “Have them rendezvous at Canton Street junction with Upper North Street and await further instructions, I don’t want them in the way of our boys Max.”

  “That’s fine by me Roy; you’re the OIC on site, I’ll advise them accordingly.”

  Roy spoke into the radio and asked for a SITREP from each of the teams.

  “The white team along with part of blue team were at the front of the house, the other part of blue team had now made it to within a few houses of the rear of number nine on the North side of the alley, Green and one of the Black teams were similarly positioned to the South side.

  The Black team had remained in their static pro
ne positions in the playground.

  Roy had retrieved a megaphone from his vehicle and was now standing just in Saracen Street a few yards from the junction with Canton Street.

  “To the people in number nine; I am the officer in command of the Special Forces unit that surrounds you,

  I request you to lay down your weapons and emerge from the front door with your arms held high, you will then be placed in custody, there will be no bargaining or negotiating, you have five minutes to comply.”

  The next few minutes passed by in an eerie silence with no communication from either side.

  Just as the five minutes elapsed movement was observed by one of the white team from the front door, a few seconds’ later three men emerged hands raised high.

  Roy spoke through the megaphone, “move to your right and spread out five paces apart, now lay down facing the ground hands behind your heads.

  The three complied with the commands given.

  Roy then picked up a message on the two-way radio from one of the white team, “boss this doesn’t add up.”

  “Explain quickly,” replied Roy.

  “We counted eleven enter the house from the van, three escaped in the van, these three plus the original suspect makes seven.”

  “Eagle six to green team, how many X-rays do you have at the back?”

  “One X-ray killed, one wounded and one still alive and kicking, however those two have withdrawn inside the house.”

  Roy did a quick maths calculation three still inside, he raised the megaphone, “the remaining three in the house have one-minute to come out the front door.”

  Omar had waited inside with the remaining two to see if his ruse would work; the last megaphone message confirmed it had not.

  He looked at the two in front of him; he had known them for many years, “are you ready to enter paradise by brothers?”

  They both nodded their heads, “let us pray”... “Allah, in whose name I begin is the most compassionate, the most merciful, look upon our actions today and save us from disgrace in this world and from the chastisement in the hereafter in thy name do we die and live; all praise to Allah.”