They weren't letting me go.
As soon as we ducked under the outer cordon near Marylebone Road, two armed officers ran over to us.
"Sorry, but I'm afraid we need to ask you to remain inside the cordon for your own safety," said one of them.
"Eh? But we're with you," said John. "What's going on?"
"I'm very, very sorry, but we're under strict orders to ensure you remain within this jurisdiction, sergeant."
"What are you talking about?" I said. "What about all the other coppers coming and going? Are you having a laugh, mate?"
The guy looked embarrassed. "Sergeant, I don't think you understand. We've been given your name and photo." He pulled out a slip of paper. "These have been circulated to all the senior officers on duty today. We've been told specifically to keep you here with everybody else."
My photo was printed on an A4 sheet labelled "Detention Authorisation." The letterhead was for the Metropolitan Police Counterterrorism Command.
"What the hell is this?" shouted John.
Both the officers tensed. "It's orders, sarge," said the first. "Not much longer now. Once SO19 are done securing the area, everyone will be free to go. Until, then, we're not authorised to allow you to leave."
"Can I get a good look at that form? Let's just check it against my ID, make sure no one's got their wires crossed."
He waved the form in front of my face while I retrieved my ID. The form was definitely about me. I made sure to check the date and time. And gawped.
"What on earth is this?" I said in shock.
"What's wrong?" asked the copper.
I looked at John. His eyes were wide. "Look at the time stamp!" he said. "It's today's date, and the time of release is 7:27 a.m. How can that be? That's before the attack."
"Huh? Let me see that." The officer snatched the form back and peered at it closely. His brow furrowed. "Yeah, that's a bit weird, ain't it?"
"Weird?" cried John. "That's a fucking stitch up, mate."
"Look, do you think you could check it out please?" I said. "There must be some sort of mistake."
The officer shrugged. "Well I'll see what I can do, but I'm not sure if this changes anything. Orders are orders, sarge." He frowned again. "But I'll have a word with someone." He shrugged again, and walked off.
I stared at his back, stunned.
We walked away silently, not really sure what to think. I couldn't quite believe it.
"John. This is seriously fucked up," I told him as he put the phone to his ear. "We need to do something."
I'd thought of calling SO1 Control about my detention. But there'd be little point. Our remit was very specific: we provided security and protection to ministers; we didn't have jurisdiction to collect or analyse intelligence on terrorism―that was the job of other agencies whom we worked with. And that meant they'd be able to do nothing about my SO15 detention.
John nodded. "I agree. But what? What can we do? Run away? We're coppers, mate. There's nowhere to run."
I shook my head, exasperated. "Don't worry, mate," said John. "I'll hang about until we sort this out, okay?"
We strolled up and down to explore the perimeter of police cordon. One end of the outer cordon closed off the junction between Abbey Road and Circus Road. The other end stretched up to Marylebone Road.
"When on earth are they gonna let everybody out of here?" moaned John.
"Who knows," I replied. "What's the point in being a copper if you can still get detained by bloody coppers?"
John's demeanour had changed. He seemed distant and conflicted. I wondered if he was battling a suspicion that I'd been involved in some way. We knew each other pretty well―John had helped me get this job in the first place. But it's not like we were bosom buddies. So I didn't blame him―if I was in his shoes, the thought would cross my mind. On the other hand, it didn't make sense that I'd been fingered an hour before Carson's assassination. John was right. This was a stitch up. I needed to get out of the lockdown.
My phone rang. I grabbed it from my belt, pulled it out of the awkward leather case, and examined the flashing screen. Julia's picture stared back at me over her name. I'd taken the picture myself when she was thirty-two, although she still looked in her mid-twenties, her long, dark hair crowning light blue eyes.
Julia was one of the few reporters who used to travel outside the Green Zone in Baghdad without an army escort. We'd first met in 2007 when she got caught in a firefight between Sunni and Shi'a militia in Basra. By sheer luck my battalion had been passing through, allowing us to intervene. Thankfully, there were no casualties on our side. We'd quickly become friends, and she'd pick my brain a lot for contacts, stories, and general inside gossip on military operations. We soon became lovers. But things got difficult as frequent travel kept us apart. At the time, I was based in Iraq, and although she was there a lot, she did stints all over the Middle East. After 2009, the British contingent left Iraq, and I was reassigned to Afghanistan.
Then the incumbent Iraqi regime held national elections, and the hope was for the new government to restore a semblance of order and safety to the beleaguered country. But it was not to be. About half a decade ago, the elected government collapsed under the weight of popular protests that turned into a new round of all out civil war, and the Brits were back in Baghdad as part of another US-led mission.
I answered the phone. "Julia?"
"David," she said. I'd missed hearing her voice, but as soon she spoke I sensed urgency. "Dave, are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Julia, I'm fine. I can't say the same for the rest of the team, though."
"Oh my God. What about John?"
"John's fine, don't worry. He's here with me. Look is everything―"
"Dave, I don't have long right now. You need to do exactly as I say. First, please record this message."
"What?"
"Record the message, dammit!" I snapped out of it. Right away I realised this wasn't an ordinary phone call. I flicked the record button on my phone.
"Done. Now what's going on?"
"I'm currently in Balad. I have highly credible information that Carson's assassination is just the beginning."
"What do you mean? Julia what are you talking about?"
"David, just shut up and listen to me! The Carson killing was definitely an Al-Qaeda operation, but there's more to it than that. A whole world more. Far more than I have time to go into. Right now, all I can tell you is that a second attack is imminent. It's going to happen in Trafalgar Square. I don't have an exact date, but it's going to happen soon, and the plan is maximum civilian casualties―some sort of public rally or something."
I listened incredulously. John's eyes widened at the expression on my face.
"Julia, how do you know this? Are you okay?"
I could hear faint sounds of gunfire and shouting in the background, like distant thunder before the storm.
"It doesn't matter. Just listen, Dave. I've tried to get through to my contacts in the Pentagon, but no one's taking it on. They're not taking this seriously, and it doesn't make sense."
The sound of gunfire was louder. My heart raced.
"Julia, where the fuck are you? Give me your coordinates, I can―"
"David! Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. You need to speak to people, use your contacts in military intelligence, to stop this. They know you, they'll believe you." I heard a male voice shouting incoherently, then Julia said, "Dave, I need to go." I heard her pause, catch her breath. "I want you to remember that I love you, Dave." Then she was gone.
"What the fuck was that about?" said John.
"I don't know. One sec."
I tried dialling her back, heart still pounding. The phone clicked, then an automated electronic voice chimed, "The number you have dialled has not been recognised. Please replace the handset, and try again. The number you have dialled has not been recognised. Please replace the handset, and try again. The number―"
I frowned, disconnected, redialled, waited. It went through to the same electronic voice.
"John, what the hell is going on?" I disconnected again. "John, try calling her on your phone."
He obliged and his frown metamorphosed into a mask of horror. "Okay, Dave, what the hell is this?"
"I don't know, man." I rubbed my eyes wearily. My head was reeling. "Listen."
I handed him the phone and played the recording of my conversation with Julia. He put it to his ear.
I hadn't seen Julia for nearly three months. The last time we'd been together, we'd rowed incessantly. She'd told me she was fed up of my mood swings and that we needed time apart. And now this? While John listened, his jaw dropping in shock, I stood frozen as I mulled it over. Julia had sounded out of breath, highly strung, distraught. She was in a hostile environment, her life quite probably in imminent danger. Panic welled in my chest.
Then the urgency of what she'd actually said sunk in. Where could she have found this warning; a large-scale terrorist attack on Trafalgar Square? What had she gotten herself into?
John handed me back my phone.
"This is fucked up, Dave. What are we gonna do?"
"I don't know. It doesn't add up. What's the likelihood that immediately after warning me about an imminent terrorist attack on London, her number disappears?"
"Too many coincidences today," John said. "I mean, first our radios go down. Carson is attacked. Then we find out you're being preemptively targeted by SO15. Now Julia's number's gone AWOL. Whoever's behind the attack is working from the inside. Must be. And maybe they knew Julia was onto something. Maybe that's why they're keeping you here. They know about you and Julia."
John was right, and his hunch made sense. But it still didn't add up.
"Well, bottom line is someone didn't want anyone to know what she knows. She's obviously in danger." I couldn't bear to voice what I really feared―that she'd already been taken out. "And we're the only ones who know what she knows. Except Grayson, who's conveniently disappeared. And if Julia's in danger, whoever's responsible may have access to her calls, and would trace them to us. Mate, we've got no idea of the probabilities involved here."
"Fuck," said John.
"We need to get out of here, now," I said. But we were literally surrounded.
"Let's go find Grayson first," said John. "Give him everything we know from Julia, and find out about this SO15 detention thing. If it doesn't work, then we make a break for it."
I nodded.
***
The air was bitter cold, even if the sky was clearer than usual. Beyond the outer police cordon on the outskirts of St. Johns Wood sat a row of four police cars, blue lights flashing silently. About a dozen fully armoured riot police, plastic shields glowing beneath the afternoon sun, lined the road. In front of them were police officers armed with submachine guns, and another group of unarmed officers were milling around up ahead, some of them directing traffic away. We'd tried finding Grayson and Manning back at the centre of the blast zone, with little luck.
I pulled out my wallet and examined the business card the anti-terror detective had given me. John was still trying to get through to Julia on his own phone with no luck. I punched in Grayson's mobile number and waited. It rang only twice before he picked up.
"Hello, Luke Grayson."
"Good afternoon, sir. It's Sergeant Ariel here."
"Ariel?" He sounded surprised. "What can I do for you?"
"We tried to find you on scene, but with no luck. I have some information. You need to act on it now."
"We had to go back to the office for a bit to check up on some leads, but we'll be back again soon. What do you have?"
"I got a call from a journalist, Julia Stephenson. You must know of her. She's the Independent's chief Middle East correspondent."
"Yeah, I remember her. She won that journalism award, right? The one that broke the Fallujah story?"
"Yep. She just called me about half an hour ago from somewhere in Balad, Iraq."
Years ago, Julia had risen to fame after obtaining chilling confirmation from an anonymous government insider that the bombing campaign in Fallujah, previously blamed on lower-level Army commanders, had been directly authorised by Prime Minister Carson, supposedly to "restore stability" in Iraq. Once her story was put out by the Independent, it spread like wildfire, and overnight Julia became a go-to figure for the inside scoop on Western shenanigans in Iraq and the Arab world.
I'd been one of her sources. At the time I was a Lieutenant in the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, a sister agency of the better known SAS, developing strategic intelligence to guide troop deployments against local terrorists. I wasn't directly involved in the bombing campaign, but was working on the ground coordinating a network of Iraqi double agents to penetrate insurgent groups. The intelligence we gathered was supposed to inform precise, targeted missions to take out the senior Al-Qaeda leadership, the ideologues and the recruiters, working amongst the insurgents. Instead, my team and I were ignored. Fallujah was carpet-bombed from the air, and mopped up afterwards by ground troops given "free fire" orders to shoot anything that moved. We'd been told that the civilian population had evacuated, that insurgents were masquerading as civilians, that the entire town was a terrorist training camp. But I was one of the few in a position to know better. It had been the last straw, the final reason that pushed me into finding my way out of the Army.
"She said that another attack is imminent. This time at Trafalgar Square."
"Another attack?"
"Another attack. She has information that the assassination of the Prime Minister was only the first stage. Trafalgar Square is the next."
"Jesus. This is big news. Can I have her number, please?"
I gave it to him.
"Bear in mind, she didn't sound like she was in a good place when she called. She sounded like she was in the thick of something. There was a lot of gunfire in the background. Now I can't get through to her."
"Right, understood. You got a date for this attack on Trafalgar Square, or any other details? Anything that can give us specifics?"
"Nothing, unfortunately―except she did say it's going to coincide with a rally or a large public gathering, to maximise casualties."
"Right. So why did Stephenson tell you? Why not call us direct? I'm guessing she knows you."
"Well, I know her personally. Before the Met I was in the Army. I did a lot of time in Iraq. That's how I know her. Beyond that, she's saying she told the Pentagon everything already, but that they're stonewalling. So she's asked me to speak to some people. I'm starting with you."
"Okay. Well, thanks for passing this on. Now we have some confirmation of an Iraq connection. Looks like it could be a region-wide operation. If she's informed the Pentagon, I'm sure someone's looking at this even if she's not aware of anything happening on the ground. Who knows, maybe someone from our end already knows and is following up."
"It's not as simple as that. She specifically said that they're ignoring her warning."
Grayson paused.
"Is it possible that her information isn't credible?"
My patience was wearing thin. "Look, sir. I know they don't exactly love Stephenson in Whitehall, but they sure as hell know she won't report something she doesn't know for a fact. She's as credible as they come."
"Right, I hear you, Ariel. Don't worry, I'm taking this very seriously. We'll see if we can make contact with her ourselves and get some more details. Otherwise, we'll liaise with the boys at MI5 and see if they've got any intelligence which can match up with Stephenson's story. You also said you think she might not be safe?"
"Yeah, definitely. Do you think you could push some buttons, get someone out there?"
"I'll do that. Leave it with me."
I felt a little relief, but it only lasted a moment. "Thank you, sir."
"No, no, thank you, sergeant. If you hear anything else, call me back. Don't hesitate."
"Will do." I was so worried about Julia I'd almost forgotten about the preemptive detention. "Sir, there's one more thing."
"Yes?"
"Why am I being detained?"
"Sorry?"
"Why am I being detained, sir?"
"What do you mean? You're free to go."
"No I'm not, sir. I tried to leave the lockdown and we were told by one of the SO19 crew that I'm not authorised to leave. They even showed me a Met Detention Authorisation form, time stamped from before the Carson attack. What the hell's going on?"
"That's bizarre. Are you sure about this?"
"Of course I'm sure."
"I had no idea. Let me find out what's up and get back to you."
Grayson disconnected the line before I could say anything else.
"That seemed to go reasonably well," said John, who'd been trying to listen in. I felt sore. "Is he playing dumb?"
"Yeah. Actually, he sounded pretty convincing. Unless he's a very good liar."