Liverpool

      John Tankersley pulled up to a McDonalds drive thru and pressed the button that would bring his window down. He ordered his drink, paid for it and then arrived at the second window. He was greeted by a sulky young girl who was wearing a green uniform and a matching baseball cap.

      “Did you order a large coffee? Do you need cream and sugar?” The spotty young girl in the baseball cap handed him a bag with enough cream and sugar to satisfy ten people.

      “Cheers,” he replied laughing. As he drove away, his phone rang.      

      “Is that you, Tank? You had better get your ass into the office fast. Have you seen the news?” The familiar voice of his colleague Faz sounded flustered.

      “Yes I`ve been following it on the radio all morning. Have we had any Intel from the boys across the pond?” Tank asked. Communications between American and British secret services had improved since 9/11 but he wondered how much could be known at this early stage.

      “The boss has got a file of information on this terror cell already. They seem to think there`s a European connection. It could possibly be connected to the Madrid and London incidents. He`s waiting for you to arrive before he briefs the troops.”

        Tank drove out of the car park and headed for the dock road that ran beside the River Mersey. He glanced to his left at the dark bricks of the Albert Docks across the road. The docks were built in the seventeenth century when Liverpool was the busiest port in Europe. The city became the stop off point for the human slave trade ships that carried Africans from their homeland to the Americas. In the 1970`s it was closed to shipping and the dock fell into disarray and became dangerous derelict buildings. Their riverside position and long maritime history led to them being restored in the 1980`s. The Albert Dock buildings were built entirely from cast iron, brick and stone, with no structural wood, and they cover over a million square foot of land on the banks of the River Mersey. They were now a busy tourist magnet full of restaurants, shops and hotels. The car park that serviced the docks was filling up already with tourists who came from all over the world to visit the historic site. The docks had become the home of The Beatles Museum; Liverpool’s most famous sons still attracted thousands of visitors of all ages. The docks and the Beatles museum were a tourist trap nestled on the banks of the River Mersey. It was similar to any other tourist hot spots that attracted large numbers of people. They were all potentially `Soft Targets`.

            Tank had been stationed in Liverpool with the Terrorist Task Force since 1991. As a younger man he had completed a six-year stint in the British Army and was almost immediately sent to serve in Northern Ireland, where he was quickly selected for a position with Special Forces before joining a mixed taskforce that combined military personnel with civilian law enforcement officers. Tank joined the armed services as a seventeen year old boy, just out of high school. He was always a well-built young man, naturally bigger and stronger than most boys his age, and he was picked for the army boxing team. Tank was a fit young soldier and he quickly became a talented pugilist. In his first competitive bout he had come up against a much older opponent from the Paratroops Regiment. British Paratroops have a fearsome reputation and the men that serve in those divisions are fiercely proud of their regiments. The boxing matches that were organised between different regiments hold a lot of kudos and regimental pride is always at stake. Despite his strength, Tank was not expected to win, because his opponent was bigger, stronger and more talented. The fight was held over six, three minute rounds and Tank had stood toe to toe with his bigger opponent every round, not appearing to feel the blows from the heavier man. No matter what combinations the talented paratrooper hit Tank with, he couldn’t make any head way against the younger soldier.

      “It`s like firing a pea shooter at a tank! I`ve hit him with my best shots and he`s still standing.” His opponent had said after the third round. That was it. The nickname stuck, Tank.

        The nickname suited him more now that he was older than ever before. Tank had become a keen martial arts exponent trained in Thai-boxing and Brazilian wrestling. The effects of combining the powerful kicks and punches of Muay-Thai kickboxing, with the lethal chokeholds and lock techniques of Brazilian Jujitsu were devastating. John Tankersley was a one-man demolition squad. He had lifted weights three times a week religiously since leaving school and had increased his muscle mass since joining the Army. His shaved head and muscular physique had an intimidating effect on most of the criminals he encountered. His Glock 9mm scared the rest. 

      Now he was lead officer on a joint taskforce known as the TTF or the Terrorist Task Force. They were based at a huge police station overlooking the docks on the River Mersey, where the civilian force that policed the city of Liverpool consisted of over four thousand uniformed officers. The building was designed to act as a fortress in the event of public unrest, and its windows were tall and narrow resembling the arrow slits of a medieval castle. It did not blend in with the city`s historic buildings, and it looked like a square concrete castle.

      Tank parked in the car park and headed into the elevator using his taskforce pass key to activate it. He stepped out onto the top floor of the police station where the taskforce was based. The floors below buzzed with the daily activities of uniformed policing, and the uniformed police were always busy in a big city like Liverpool. The top floor was exclusively the home of the Terrorist Task Force. When the doors opened and he entered the room the office had a sombre feel to it. People were quiet, only nodding hello as he went by. `Nervous anticipation`, Tank thought. This was the calm before the storm. The events that had taken place in American holiday resorts overnight would have a resounding impact on security forces the world over.

      There were thirty-two people assigned to the taskforce at any one time. Twenty-eight were here, two were on vacation and two were involved in undercover operations elsewhere.

      “Be quiet please!” Stanley Timms the taskforce director shouted across the office. A large remote screen started to descend down the wall next to where Timms stood.

      “We have satellite link up with our people in the States. Now it seems to me that they have more information on the suspected perpetrators than we usually have at this stage of an investigation. Pay attention to what the FBI Agent is going to tell us. Jade please could you record the communication and make sure everyone gets transcripts of it today.” Jade nodded. Everyone else made themselves comfortable and got ready to listen to the communication from American security services.

      “At this point in the investigation the only stupid question, is the one you later wish that you had asked. Patch us through please to Quantico.” 

      Director of Operations, Major Stanley Timms rolled up his sleeves and stood back a little to see the screen. A man with perfect hair and a dark suit appeared on the digital screen, he adjusted a small microphone in front of him. Special Agent Galvin introduced himself briefly as the coordinator of an ongoing operation involving the FBI and the NSA.

      “The story so far as we have it, Guys, is as follows. We have a dead Iranian national who failed to detonate his device in the Disney incident. This suspect is not in our system however, he had a credit card on his person that was linked to a group of bank accounts that we have been watching since 9/11. We also have a dead Iraqi national; we will refer to him as body V, for now, who was shot in a parking garage beneath a Las Vegas hotel. He was shot resisting capture by officers of the NSA, and they were alerted by a text message that was sent from Vegas to a cell phone that we know was last used in Florida. Body V also has credit cards on him that are linked to the suspect bank accounts, and he had checked into the hotel using a fake passport. We have recovered three sniper rifles from the trunk of the victim’s car and enough ammunition to start a war.”

      “In addition to that we have a Special Emergency Reaction Team heading to the Grand Canyon national park area. We have traced a call that was paid for through one of the accounts that we`re monitoring, and it was used at a resort called the Bright Angel Lodge. We are anticipating some terrorist activity in that area. We do not know what type of attack, if any, is planned but we must play on the safe side.” Agent Galvin opened a thin manila file and looked at the information that was contained in it.

      “Thirty minutes ago we started receiving reports of a truck bomb that has exploded at Pier 39 in the San Francisco bay area. We have no definitive proof they are linked to the other attacks, but we have to assume that they are. The other problem that we have at the moment, and the reason we are being so forthcoming at this stage, is that the last purchase made from this bank account before we froze it was an airline ticket. A woman called Yasmine Mina Ahmed, an Iraqi passport holder, made the purchase. She flew into Manchester, England this morning.” The room stayed silent as Galvin finished his summary.

      “Why were these bank accounts that you have been monitoring not frozen sooner?” asked Faz, she was never one to stay quiet for long.

     “We need to know where these terrorists and their suspected affiliates are at any one time. We have been following their movements undetected using this financial information since 9/11. These people think they are invisible. Therefore, we freeze some accounts and pretend that we don’t know about others in order to track the movement of suspects.”

      “What information do we have on Yasmine Ahmed?” Major Timms asked the FBI agent.

      “We know that she is related to Yasser Indri Ahmed, his file has been e-mailed across to you. This guy is big trouble with a capital T. We have suspected him of sponsoring religious training camps in Somalia, Pakistan, Iran and Syria. He has also spent time in the Sudan and Afghanistan. This guy has been linked with most of the top Islamic Militant groups. We think he is the brains behind the group `Axe`. All our intelligence on the Axe organisation is with the Ahmed file that I have sent to you. The strange thing is that we have Yasmine Ahmed listed as dead. We believe she died two years ago in an American military air strike in Iraq.”

        “Who bought the airline ticket and travelled on that Manchester flight then? Do we have C.C.T.V footage of the passengers that boarded the airplane at all?” Timms prompted the American agent.

        “All we have is a digital image of a female of Middle Eastern appearance, checking bags in at the airport desk. I`ll have the film sent over to you immediately.”

        “How many casualties do you have?” asked Tank.

        “The explosions in Florida and San Francisco were so large that we are finding it difficult to recover complete bodies.  I`m not sure we will ever know the answer to that question,” agent Galvin said.

Chapter 10