TERRORIST TASK FORCE/ LIVERPOOL
Chen replaced the handset of the telephone and he slammed his fist against the desk in frustration.
“What`s wrong now?” David Bell asked. Information was pouring into the taskforce office all afternoon. Uniformed police were deployed to identify the location of every ice-cream van and hot dog stall they could find. No one could approach the suspect vehicles in case the suicide bombers became suspicious and detonated their device. The streets of Liverpool were swarming with people wearing replica football shirts enjoying the carnival atmosphere. Chen had sent a uniformed officer to a local sportswear warehouse to purchase two-dozen replica shirts. They were distributed to uniformed officers so that they could reconnaissance any potential vehicles without raising suspicion.
Grace Farrington called Chen with some urgent developments. Faz and Tank had raided an address in Anfield. It was a basement apartment close to the football stadium and it was completely sterile. Everything had been wiped down and cleaned. In the middle of the living room of the apartment was a wooden coffee table, and in the centre of the coffee table was the severed head of the old Mullah whom Yasser had entrusted with caring for Mustapha and Yasmine. The old man`s tongue had been pulled between his teeth and was left lolling out of the dead mouth, stapled to it was a photograph of Yasmine Ahmed.
Grace also received a call from the diving centre at Carpenray. She had spoken to them previously when air tanks marked with their brand, were found at the mosque in Warrington. The owner there had kept her number in case anything untoward happened. The owner informed Grace that a dry suit had been stolen along with all the relative equipment and a DPV. The name of the man that hired the equipment couldn’t be identified but the staff remembered that he was of Middle Eastern appearance. The theft of the Diver Propulsion Vehicle was significant in the fact that the distance being patrolled along the River Mersey would now increase tenfold. This would dilute any attempts to search for a submerged diver.
“Uniform has found a car abandoned near the Mersey promenade. They say that it has a man`s clothing and shoes on the back seat. It could be a suicide drowning or we could have a diver in the river. This has to be related to the other incidents that we have.” Chen feared an attack from the river the most. The Coastguard were on heightened alert but they could not prevent a determined diver from reaching the water. Now that they had the information from Carpenray, they could only assume that an attack from the river was imminent.
“We need to launch every available unmanned spy drone and have them patrolling the River Mersey immediately. Order them to concentrate their searches around the John Lennon Airport and the Stanlow oil refinery. If we are correct in assuming that Ahmed is spelling Yasmine with his attacks, then Stanlow is the more likely target. The drones have infrared thermal imaging but it`s still nearly impossible to trace a diver in a dry suit,” before Chen had finished giving the order four black helicopter drones lifted off from the roof of the taskforce building. They headed off to their programmed search areas like a swarm of huge black metal wasps.
“Coastguard control has three motor patrol boats fitted with specialized diver-detector sonar. They are widening the search area to include the approach water between Otters Pool and the potential targets. If the terrorists are using a DPV then they should be able to pinpoint the sound of the electric motor using high power passive sonar,” the fat controller had been tasked to borrow the sonar equipment from an American Warship. It was prototype equipment that was still in the development stage but it was far more advanced than anything the Royal Navy possessed. The Americans also had a trained sea lion and four dolphins that were used to locate scuba divers on behalf of a specialised Navy Seal Team. Unfortunately, they were in the Philippines seconded to the government there looking for al-Qaeda trained terrorists. It would take the navy two weeks to fly the animals into Britain so the idea had been shelved.
“We have deployed sharpshooters at Stanlow and we have a team of Special Boat Service divers in the water near the refinery and the airport.” David Bell had struggled to get the British Navy to deploy the Special Boat Service initially but once the terrorist threat seemed imminent, they had responded with two teams of divers. They were experts at maritime counter-terrorism. The Special Boat Service was responsible for the Liberation of the British embassy in Kuwait in the first Gulf War in 1991. On May 12th 2007, the British Special Boat Service killed Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah in Helmand province during a raid on his compound.
The SBS divers were armed with APS Underwater Assault Rifles. APS stands for Avtomat Podvodnyy Spetsialnyy, which translates, to Special Underwater Automatic Rifle. The underwater weapon was derived from the Russian made AK47. Because ordinary bullets are inaccurate and have a very short range if fired underwater, the APS Assault Rifle is fitted with a magazine that holds twenty-six, five inch long steel bolts that can penetrate even reinforced dry suits. If Nasser al-Masri was attempting to cross the River Mersey, he would have to avoid the Special Boat Service.
“What is the situation with Tank and Grace?” Major Timms approached the two intelligence agents.
“The address in Anfield that they searched is sterile, Major, apart from this,” Chen handed the Major a digital crime scene photograph of the Mullah`s severed head.
“That looks like Yasser Ahmed`s handy work. What is the situation regarding the location of the suspect vehicles?” the Major asked. The problem was there would be approximately four hundred ice-cream vans in the city that day. They could not risk panicking the public or attract further press interest by ram raiding every ice-cream and hot dog vendor in the vicinity.
“We have plain clothes officers all around the Anfield stadium. They are marking the position of every vendor of Middle Eastern or Asian appearance first. Once we have all the information back, Tank is going to eliminate each suspect site one by one,” Chen explained. It would be a painfully slow process but they had very few options without alerting any potential suicide bombers.
“What about cancelling the game itself, is that an option?” the Major mused.
“At the moment the imminent threats are from the river, and outside the stadium. The fans will probably be safer inside the ground. From the intelligence that we have we could make matters worse. We are concerned that if the bombers get wind of the fact that we are onto them then they may just detonate their devices at random,” Chen was using a lot of supposition to support his theories but his gut feeling was that the bombers would be aiming to detonate their bombs shortly before the stadium filled up. He was guessing that three o`clock would be the time when the streets around the ground would be the busiest. It would be the optimum moment to explode a series of bombs. If they called off the game and alerted the bombers there was no telling what might happen. They still had two hours to locate and neutralise the bombers. The River Mersey was well protected from a maritime attack, the focus now was on finding Yasser Ahmed`s affiliates.
“We could use Mustapha to weed out the bombers,” Chen said. Everyone looked shocked at the suggestion but he continued anyway
“If we assume that any potential suspect bombers must know what Yasser Ahmed looks like, then we could disguise Mustapha and get him to signal the bombers away from their vans from a distance. If he wears dark sunglasses for instance then the likeness is uncanny. From a distance of say, fifty yards, they would not know that it was not Yasser until it was too late,” Chen was talking quickly and using hand gestures to enforce his idea. He shrugged as he finished his suggestion and a bolt of pain shot through his shoulder making him wince.
“I think that the idea might just work. We haven’t got much time left to try anything else. This could be our only realistic chance of identifying the bombers before they act. Get Mustapha in here quickly and let`s prep him with what we want him to do,” Major Stanley Timms knew that it was a risky plan but he could not think of any other way to lure the bombers from their vehicles.
Mustapha was escorted into the taskforce office and was briefed by Chen and David Bell. A pair of donated dark glasses was placed on him, and a female officer applied some foundation to the nasty scab on his cheek. From a distance he could pass as Yasser Ahmed. Mustapha was frightened silly. He was still suffering from the effects of his adventure at South Stack lighthouse and his ordeal in the waters of the Irish Sea. The thought of being bait for a group of potential suicide bombers was not a pleasant one. He laughed with Chen and the fat controller about getting a ticket to watch the game if all went well with Chen`s plan, but on the inside he felt very scared indeed.
“We also have a mobile phone that was posted to your address in Holyhead. We are assuming that your brother sent it to you in order to make contact with you at a later date. Take it with you just in case. Please don`t worry about anything. Tank and Grace are already there and they will be with you every step of the way,” the fat controller placed a small micro-camera to Mustapha`s jacket lapel. It would record and transmit images and sound back to the taskforce. A tiny plastic flesh coloured device was placed into Mustapha`s right ear. Chen tested it and now Mustapha could receive orders via the tiny speaker. Mustapha was stripped to the waist and he was dressed in a battle vest before getting dressed again.
“The vest is just a precaution. I don’t think for one minute that you will need it but it`s best to be on the safe side,” Chen said lying.
Mustapha felt a little bit safer with the vest on but was still very anxious. He placed the mobile phone into his pocket and followed the Major into the lift that would take them down to the car park. It was only three miles to the Anfield area of Liverpool but the streets were packed to bursting point with football fans dressed in red and blue. Mustapha felt his throat drying out and he suddenly felt very thirsty. It was the longest three-mile journey that he had ever had to make. It was quarter past one when he stepped out of the unmarked police car in Anfield and shook hands with Tank.