Invasion (4 page)

Danesh Khan’s knees cracked
painfully as he got to his feet and made his way stiffly out of the prayer hall and into the adjoining atrium. He took his trainers from the cubbyhole and slipped them on, continuing along the carpeted hallway to the busy entrance foyer. There he joined a throng of other worshippers browsing the trestle tables stacked with Islamic books and pamphlets. Feigning interest, he engaged one of the mosque workers in a brief conversation about the latest goings-on in Arabia, all the time keeping a watchful eye on the hallway.

After a minute or so, the wait was over. There he was. Khan headed for the exit, keeping a small group of worshippers between himself and the object of his surveillance, the man known simply
as Target One. He eyed the individual through the crowd as the target bid farewell to two other men, then made his way out into the street.

The mosque was situated just off the A24 Morden Road in southwest London, a rather uninspiring structure as mosques
went, but Khan thought it was one of the more interesting buildings in this drab suburb on the borders of London and Surrey. Target One walked out of the main gate and turned right towards Morden town centre, no doubt making for the bus stop that would take him home to Mitcham, assumed Khan.

‘Target One on the move,’ he mumbled into his tiny microphone secreted under his shirt collar. His hidden earpiece hissed in reply.

‘Copy that, Kilo-Whiskey Seven. Fifty metres from the tube station.’

Khan let Target One drift slightly ahead. As a Muslim operative for MI5, he was one of only a small handful of intelligence
officers whose sole task was to infiltrate British Islamic society and investigate potential links to terrorism. Historically, western intelligence agencies had difficulty infiltrating such closed communities, but Khan, a British Pakistani and former practising Muslim, had little difficulty blending in. His well-rehearsed cover story was always watertight, his natural discretion and unobtrusive manner lending itself perfectly to the painstaking task of intelligence gathering. But there was little real success.

During an eight-year career, his undercover work had led to many arrests, but those had been mostly for immigration or counterfeiting offences, a fair amount of drug seizures and benefit
fraud. Peanuts, as far as Khan was concerned. What he wanted was a major terror bust to improve his case figures; but this wasn’t like the old days, when young radicals wore their loyalties on their sleeves and the targets were easy to identify. No, things had changed in the last decade. As
the years passed, the firebrands had ceased their recruitment drives, the foreign Imams no longer spreading their messages of hate in the mosques and madrassas of Britain. The Jihad had gone dark.

There used to be plenty of Muslims who spoke quietly about taking up arms and fighting for the Islamic cause, even the so-called moderates, who quietly supported the fighters and performed their own brand of Jihad. In the early days, Khan had heard their whispered conversations, watching, listening, until all he was left with were words. No plans ever materialised, no operations were ever given the green light. It was as if the word had come down from on high: ‘No more talk of Holy War, of struggle and sacrifice. Let the Infidels be deafened by our silence.’

Khan didn’t believe it. The conflict had lasted for over fourteen hundred years, an enduring state of mind, the raison d’être of an ideology that just couldn’t be switched off overnight. Along with other operatives, Khan had warned his superiors, understanding only too well the practice of Taqiyya, the cloak of deceit that the Qur’an permitted in order to fool unbelievers. But politics prevailed, the
mind-set
of appeasement that permeated the corridors of power in Whitehall stalling fresh lines of investigation, of surveillance and tracking. The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood across the Arab world, culminating in the formation of the state of Arabia, was directly linked to the scaling down of Islamic-related terror investigations. Khan had viewed the move as foolish.

Target One was a case in point. Khan was under increasing pressure to justify the man hours and expenditure for continued surveillance on a subject that had yet to yield anything of any significance. Target One had come to the attention of the security services some time ago, a raid on his house producing a computer filled with Jihadist video files, large amounts
of cash that couldn’t be accounted for, blank passports and credit cards found hidden under floorboards in an upstairs bedroom. Target One’s lawyer had argued successfully that the property was a halfway house for overseas travellers, that Target One couldn’t be linked to the cash or passports, that his computer had been used by others, now long gone. He’d walked,
as Khan knew he would. But the trips to Arabia continued, final destination unknown, MI6 being virtually redundant in the Holy State.

Target One was in his thirties, like Khan, with a slim build and a short-cropped beard. There was something wrong about the man, Khan’s gut instinct told him, but his superiors
were tiring of Khan’s hunches, had given him a month to produce evidence – hard, concrete evidence – or else the plug would be pulled. So Khan had worked for the past eight days straight, desperately seeking something that would tip the balance of the investigation
back in his favour. If unsuccessful, Khan’s team of watchers would move on to other operations. Right now, the focus was on hard-left agitators, subversives and other anarchists, all seemingly hell bent on bringing down the government. They were
the priority, Khan was told, not so-called Muslim terrorists. The
jihad was dead, and Arabia had risen from its funeral pyre, a phoenix of stable government, of strengthened diplomacy and economic prosperity. It was a mistake.

Khan shook off his thoughts and concentrated instead on the immediate task, following from a distance as Target One sidestepped a mountain of bin liners that spewed rubbish across the pavement, and jogged over the main road. A van drew up alongside Khan, the side cargo door sliding open. Khan jumped in as another watcher, Spencer, hopped out, taking up the surveillance on Target One.

The driver, Max, studied Khan in his rear view mirror. ‘Well?’

‘Nothing,’ Khan shrugged. ‘Prayers as usual, a quick chat with a couple of older guys I’ve never seen before, and then he left.’

Max exhaled loudly. ‘Dammit. Any luck with the wire-tap?’

‘Judge threw it out. Unwarranted, bordering on harassment she said.’

‘Stupid
cow
,’ cursed Max. ‘So, we’re back to square one again. Let’s face it, we’re going to have to cut this fucker loose.’

Khan opened his mouth to reply, but then paused, frowning. ‘Wait. There was one odd moment, just before I left the mosque.’

A sharp rap on the passenger window drew their attention outside. A traffic warden stared sullenly at them from beneath the peak of his cap, his wide black face locked in a permanent snarl.

‘No parking,’ he ordered. ‘Move.’

Max reached into his jacket, produced a Metropolitan Police warrant card.
‘
Fuck off.’ The warden sloped away, muttering under his breath. Max turned back to Khan. ‘Go on.’

‘Yeah, the others, the older guys. They kissed.’ Max screwed his face up. ‘They what?’

‘They kissed our boy, on the cheeks, respectfully. I caught it just before he left the foyer.’

‘Is it significant?’

Khan thought about it for a moment. The embraces were warm, the kisses from the older ones courteous, respectful. No, almost reverential. One of them had even bowed his head slightly. It was out of the ordinary, a parting that held some significance for all three men. It was a scene that most human beings had witnessed or experienced themselves at some time in their lives, usually at airports or train stations, and Khan suddenly realised the importance of the moment.

‘I think they were saying goodbye.’

Target One walked swiftly towards the station, his heart racing. Finally, the day had arrived. He had prayed at the mosque for the last time, washed and shaved, and recorded a final message to his family
,
which would be delivered after the operation was complete.
,
Target One was prepared. But despite the honour he felt at being selected for such a mission and the comforting embrace of his faith, he was also quietly terrified. That was why his heart raced, why his skin felt clammy, why his armpits leaked sweat.

He passed the bus stop, his usual stop, resisting the sudden urge to wait with the other sour-faced Infidels and take the bus back to Mitcham. But he couldn’t, of course. He’d been chosen, educated and trained, his place in Paradise already assured, and he clung to that thought as he continued
across the road into the tube station, swiping his travel card at the passenger barrier. The station was quiet and a train waited on the platform as Target One headed toward the front carriage.

Employing
his anti-surveillance
training, he stopped suddenly
and turned around, doubling back. There were two people behind him on the platform. One was an old woman laden with shopping
bags, puffing her way onto an empty carriage. The other, a white man in his late twenties, continued down the stairs towards him. He wore a baseball cap, jacket, jeans and running shoes. Target One made a show of checking his watch against the passenger display above his head. The man veered off and hopped aboard the train halfway up the platform. Good. Target One continued towards the front of the train and entered the empty carriage behind the driver’s compartment. He took a seat facing the platform and presently a computerised voice announced the train’s imminent departure. After a moment, the doors hissed shut and the train lurched forward, accelerating into the tunnel.

Target One glanced to his right, searching the rows of empty carriages as they rocked and swayed from side to side through the darkness. He noticed the man in the baseball cap, two carriages down, staring at an advertising display above his head. Target One pulled out a battered copy of the Qur’an from his trouser pocket and leafed through the well-thumbed pages. He wracked his brains, trying to work out what carriage Baseball Cap had got on. He was sure it wasn’t
as far up as he was now. He must have used the interconnecting doors to work his way towards the front of the train. If that was the case, then he might have a tail. Or he could just be paranoid. But the anti-surveillance training he’d received in the desert had taught him to be paranoid. Everyone was a possible Infidel agent.

He mulled over what he knew about the man, gleaned from a momentary glance on the platform. He was white; not that many white people in Morden anymore, but there were some. Baseball
cap and jacket, possible disguise. Remove the hat, reverse the jacket, now you’re someone
else. Jeans and running shoes; common enough clothing to go unnoticed, yet running shoes were good for pursuit. So, a possible
tail. I’ll know soon enough, he decided.

The train continued on its journey, rattling beneath the densely-populated suburbs of southwest London, the carriages becoming more crowded with each stop. The carriage intercom hissed and crackled.

‘The next station is Clapham
Common. Customers requiring the Clapham
Junction Eurostar terminal please change here.’

Target One stood up. He stumbled slightly with the motion of the carriage, reaching for the hand rail above his head. He glanced to his right. Two carriages down, Baseball Cap was also on his feet. The train hissed to a stop at Clapham Common. Target One got off, noting that Baseball Cap had got off too. He silently cursed. The man’s behaviour was displaying all the characteristics of a tail; he had to lose this tail or abort his operation. And that would mean he had failed. There was no alternative.

Target One
walked slowly along the platform, keeping his head down, shuffling towards the stairs along with the other passengers who had just alighted. From the corner of his eye, he saw Baseball Cap move to the southbound side of the platform, as if waiting to board a train travelling in the other direction. Now he was almost certain the man was an Infidel agent. Moments later, Target One drew parallel with Baseball Cap, who suddenly feigned interest in the advertising displays on the curved wall of the opposite tunnel. At that moment, the
door
closure signal beeped, echoing around the concourse. Target One cut quickly through the crowd and stepped back onto the northbound train, squeezing himself behind a large black man and peering over his shoulder out onto the platform. The doors hissed closed. He saw Baseball Cap casually turn around, trying to locate his mark. As the train began to move, he saw him frantically searching the crowds and then move swiftly towards the stairs. He didn’t look at the carriage once.

As the train continued towards Clapham North station, Target One found a seat and pondered his predicament. Yes, he was being followed, and by the Security Services no doubt, but for how long had he been followed? Not that long, probably a routine operation, he decided. Target One had lived a simple life, employing
the same habits and schedule for most of the time, with only a single brush with the law to his name. Besides, he was only being followed by one man. If he wasn’t, then Baseball Cap wouldn’t have panicked, wouldn’t have run for the stairs, a sure sign he was operating alone.