lead him to the Range Rover.
For a moment Kerr was back in the toilets at Green Park station, smashing the young bomber’s face against the mirror. ‘It’s a fine line. And I’m not having a go, believe me. I’ve been there. A young man is dead because I overreacted.’
‘Oh, really?’ The Trojan’s voice was bitter with sarcasm. ‘And when was that, exactly?’
He was strangling the wannabe suicide bomber now, then Gabi was screaming at him, her eyes wide in disbelief at her father’s violence. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
As he passed by, his face framed in white, Jibril looked hard at the firearms man. It was as if he had heard everything. ‘Doesn’t like you much, does he?’
They carefully loaded Jibril into the vehicle and raced away. Uniformed cops were taping off the scene and a superintendent was coming their way.
In the ops room, they all heard the message that told Weatherall she had been wrong. Alice looked to Fargo for instructions, and Fargo turned to Weatherall. ‘Ma’am? Do you still want surveillance stood down?’
Weatherall put one hand to her mouth, and with the other slammed the Andromeda file back into the drawer. ‘Tell Mr Kerr I want to see him now.’
‘I think he’s going to be pretty busy at the scene.’
‘No,’ she hissed, red-faced. ‘He’s to return immediately and report to me in my office. That’s an order. Understood?’
And with that, leaving chaos in her wake, she swept from the room.
Eight
Thursday, 13 September, 09.13, Pepe’s Place, Kennington
John Kerr’s experience told him things were about to get bad. With countless witnesses and photographs showing cops apparently about to execute another unarmed man, the actions of Jack Langton, Melanie and the Trojans they had disrupted would soon come under the closest scrutiny.
Kerr had been here before. As surveillance leader when the Trojans had shot Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell, he still felt deep regret and a heavy burden of guilt, constantly asking himself if he could have done more to prevent such an unnecessary loss of life. But the tragedy had reinforced his views about the conduct of aggressive covert operations. He believed that the odds of fast-track bosses resolving a rapidly moving operation were slim, especially so many miles from the scene.
Serious operational business should be left to the other ranks covering the cold, noisy plot, not police-college clones with an eye on an extra paragraph for their résumé. You had to be able to feel the atmosphere, observe the target’s body language, get close enough to touch him, then decide to interdict or let him run without sending a request up the line. That, for Kerr, was the lesson from the tragedy of Jean Charles; and it was the reason he had followed Jack Langton to the scene, rather than returning to brief Weatherall.
Today, as head of this surveillance operation, Kerr was convinced he had been right all along to argue that they should let Jibril run. Whatever the failures of command and control from the Yard, Langton’s surveillance on the ground had been textbook, and he intended to prove it.
As soon as Kerr received Alan Fargo’s message he called Weatherall’s private office to say he would be unavailable until ten o’clock. Stalling her gave him just under an hour to brief Langton and Melanie before racing back to the Yard. They gathered in Pepe’s Place, a greasy spoon in a side-street off Kennington Lane, one of their regular haunts.
Kerr had also called Justin Hine, his young technical guru, who drove up from Camberwell. Kerr needed Justin to analyse the data from Langton’s explosives sniffer and interpret the surveillance photographs to confirm there had never been any indication that Jibril was wearing a bomb belt or vest.
Fargo managed to escape from the ops room and arrived last, just as Kerr was telling them to turn off their radios and mobiles.
Kerr’s team was close, strong on friendship and easy on rank.
For a moment Kerr was back in the toilets at Green Park station, smashing the young bomber’s face against the mirror. ‘It’s a fine line. And I’m not having a go, believe me. I’ve been there. A young man is dead because I overreacted.’
‘Oh, really?’ The Trojan’s voice was bitter with sarcasm. ‘And when was that, exactly?’
He was strangling the wannabe suicide bomber now, then Gabi was screaming at him, her eyes wide in disbelief at her father’s violence. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
As he passed by, his face framed in white, Jibril looked hard at the firearms man. It was as if he had heard everything. ‘Doesn’t like you much, does he?’
They carefully loaded Jibril into the vehicle and raced away. Uniformed cops were taping off the scene and a superintendent was coming their way.
In the ops room, they all heard the message that told Weatherall she had been wrong. Alice looked to Fargo for instructions, and Fargo turned to Weatherall. ‘Ma’am? Do you still want surveillance stood down?’
Weatherall put one hand to her mouth, and with the other slammed the Andromeda file back into the drawer. ‘Tell Mr Kerr I want to see him now.’
‘I think he’s going to be pretty busy at the scene.’
‘No,’ she hissed, red-faced. ‘He’s to return immediately and report to me in my office. That’s an order. Understood?’
And with that, leaving chaos in her wake, she swept from the room.
Eight
Thursday, 13 September, 09.13, Pepe’s Place, Kennington
John Kerr’s experience told him things were about to get bad. With countless witnesses and photographs showing cops apparently about to execute another unarmed man, the actions of Jack Langton, Melanie and the Trojans they had disrupted would soon come under the closest scrutiny.
Kerr had been here before. As surveillance leader when the Trojans had shot Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell, he still felt deep regret and a heavy burden of guilt, constantly asking himself if he could have done more to prevent such an unnecessary loss of life. But the tragedy had reinforced his views about the conduct of aggressive covert operations. He believed that the odds of fast-track bosses resolving a rapidly moving operation were slim, especially so many miles from the scene.
Serious operational business should be left to the other ranks covering the cold, noisy plot, not police-college clones with an eye on an extra paragraph for their résumé. You had to be able to feel the atmosphere, observe the target’s body language, get close enough to touch him, then decide to interdict or let him run without sending a request up the line. That, for Kerr, was the lesson from the tragedy of Jean Charles; and it was the reason he had followed Jack Langton to the scene, rather than returning to brief Weatherall.
Today, as head of this surveillance operation, Kerr was convinced he had been right all along to argue that they should let Jibril run. Whatever the failures of command and control from the Yard, Langton’s surveillance on the ground had been textbook, and he intended to prove it.
As soon as Kerr received Alan Fargo’s message he called Weatherall’s private office to say he would be unavailable until ten o’clock. Stalling her gave him just under an hour to brief Langton and Melanie before racing back to the Yard. They gathered in Pepe’s Place, a greasy spoon in a side-street off Kennington Lane, one of their regular haunts.
Kerr had also called Justin Hine, his young technical guru, who drove up from Camberwell. Kerr needed Justin to analyse the data from Langton’s explosives sniffer and interpret the surveillance photographs to confirm there had never been any indication that Jibril was wearing a bomb belt or vest.
Fargo managed to escape from the ops room and arrived last, just as Kerr was telling them to turn off their radios and mobiles.
Kerr’s team was close, strong on friendship and easy on rank.
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