Sam 7, p.37
SAM 7, page 37
So far only three of the survivors who might have come from the plane had been identified as such. All three had died. Eleven more had turned out to be train passengers. It had to be assumed that no more airline passengers would be found among the serious casualties. He scribbled the next heading.
2. Serious casualties 418, minor casualties 604, total 1022.
Thompson paused again. The log Sturgess had kept revealed a discrepancy. More people had been treated by hospitals than the casualty bureau had records of. A number of the less injured must have got themselves to hospital. This reminded him that they would also have to consolidate statistics of the assistance given by voluntary services like the Salvation Army and the Red Cross. He laboured on with his list.
3. Property.
Thompson stopped. God in heaven, the facts one needed. Compiling the report was almost worse than dealing with the incident – and this was only a preliminary one. Chisholm would know how many items of property had been recovered. He lifted the telephone and asked for the chief superintendent, only to be told that he was on his way across. Wondering if Chisholm had located the missing briefcase led Thompson’s thoughts back to the terrorists and their motivation. From Allom he knew that the Israelis were anxious to produce the original documents at the United Nations. But it did not necessarily follow that the terrorists thought them so damning. Probably there was more to it than Allom had disclosed. Anyway he had a hunch that his leak to Eckhardt would produce some kind of inquiry, which in turn begged the question of whether the terrorists, or their friends, knew what the briefcase looked like – or even knew the documents were in one. The Israelis themselves had only just heard that it had been chained to Maier’s wrist. Thompson thought it a fair presumption that anyone asking at the inquiry office downstairs would try to establish ownership by describing the documents themselves. They could hardly hope to walk in and seize them, which meant effectively that they would be interviewed. It was, he reflected, a very long shot. Meanwhile the CID was combing London for suspects. David Chance was due back in a few minutes. Maybe he would have some news.
There was a knock on the door and Chisholm entered. Thompson saw the triumph in his face before he noticed what he had brought.
‘Here you are!’ announced Chisholm, lifting up a brown paper package and depositing it on the desk. ‘We found it.’ He stripped off the wrapping with the aid of a pocket knife, revealing a dirt-spattered brown leather briefcase.
‘We’ve gone over it for fingerprints. You can touch it.’
Thompson gazed at the case. So this was the object on which someone had set so high a price that neither death nor destruction mattered. It had once been elegant. Its two combination locks were of heavy brass. So were the fittings of its handle, now twisted almost off. Almost, but not completely. From one end of it hung three links of thin steel chain, the last one deformed.
‘One hell of a force yanked that apart,’ commented Chisholm.
Indeed the underneath of the case had clearly caught on something, for the leather had been gouged clean through for several inches.
‘And where did you find it?’ asked Thompson.
Chisholm’s big features creased into a grin. ‘Stupid, really. I should have thought of it earlier. It was with all the stuff removed from the left luggage office by platform 15. The office is only a yard or two from where the plane’s nose hit. I reckon this case must have been thrown right out, like some of the bodies were, fallen near the left luggage store and been mistaken for an item from it. Although the fire didn’t reach there, the place was so badly damaged that we transferred the whole lot. So I wasn’t only looking for a case with a bit of chain attached, I was looking for one without a left luggage office sticker. It took less than twenty minutes – once I’d had the idea.’
‘Have you checked the contents?’
‘Do you have the combination?’ asked Chisholm pointedly. ‘Knowing they’ll claim it’s diplomatic baggage, I didn’t dare force the locks.’
Thompson drew in his breath sharply and swore.
‘I’ll have to seek advice, I suppose. Not that opening it would take an expert long.’ He lifted the case gently and placed it on the floor beside the desk. ‘Thanks,’ he said warmly, ‘thanks a lot. The Commissioner will be more than pleased. Oh, by the way, can you give me the tally of property recovered?’
‘I’ll get back and phone you the figures,’ said Chisholm. ‘We’ve just about sorted it all out now. What a way to spend the weekend!’
After Chisholm had left Thompson telephoned the news through to New Scotland Yard and asked for instructions. After a short delay he was told the Home Office had to be consulted. They would ring him back. Resignedly he launched on a fresh attempt to begin his report.
‘At 16.16 hours, Thursday 9 May, a DC-10 aircraft of Atlantic Airlines crashed on the western or Brighton side of Victoria Station. The first police officer on the scene was . . .’
A cracking explosion, as violent as a thunderclap, reverberated down the street, shaking the building. The window frames rattled. There was a second or two’s complete silence, as if the city was holding its breath. Then as Thompson leapt to his feet, the police station came back to life. An alarm bell rang. There was shouts. Men ran down the stairs, their boots hammering on the flooring. Thompson rushed out to the landing almost colliding with the inspector from the room next door.
‘Sounded pretty close, sir,’ the inspector called out and bolted down.
It took all Thompson’s self-discipline not to follow. Reminding himself that Rochester Row had a well-established routine for bombings, and that there was no need for him to interfere, he returned to his desk. From outside he heard the wailing of a two-tone horn, and, glancing through the window, saw a blue patrol car roar past.
On the ground floor policemen streamed out of the rear entrance into the yard that gave on to Vincent Square. Horses in the stables were whinnying with fright. A sergeant, seeing from the smoke and dust where the bomb had gone off, raced back indoors to the station office and alerted the telephonists. As they put through calls to the Ambulance and Fire Services and to Scotland Yard’s Information Room, the sergeant dashed out again and round the square.
Injured schoolboys in white sweaters were lying on the grass. All the windows of the buildings opposite were shattered. Strewn in the roadway lay twisted pieces of metal that he recognized as parts of a car. A seat had been thrown up in the air and impaled itself on the railings. The rest of the Triumph had burst into flames. Three minutes later the huge red Dennis pump appliance from Greycoat Place arrived, the first ambulance hard behind it. Fireman dragged out hoses, and as they extinguished the small fire the stretcher bearers began loading casualties.
Inside the café where Mohammed and Kamal sat pretending to drink their coffee the explosion produced momentary consternation.
‘Jesus,’ said the owner. ‘Another bloody bomb.’
Several people ran out on to the pavement. But Vincent Square was hidden by houses and there was nothing to be seen. They returned disappointed.
‘The cop shop’s close enough,’ said one. ‘No need for us to worry.’
Kamal and Mohammed stayed silent. After another four minutes they left and walked along Rochester Row. In the distance they could hear emergency sirens and an alarm bell. The reporters who had been waiting outside the police station had gone. Mohammed adjusted the fold of the raincoat over his arm, feeling stupid at carrying it when there was no rain falling, although the grenade bulged comfortingly in its pocket.
The police station’s double doors were unguarded and they passed through, finding themselves in a narrow hall with four doors off it. Nothing indicated where any of these led, except a glass panelled one on the left marked ‘Inquiries’. Through it they could see a counter and a police sergeant. As they stood in the hallway, momentarily uncertain, he noticed them.
‘This way,’ said Kamal decisively and pushed open the door.
‘The Inspector Donaldson told us to come here,’ he announced boldly. ‘We have information about the air crash.’
From the Communications Room beyond came a high-pitched chatter of radio and telephone dialogue.
‘Inspector Donaldson?’ queried the sergeant. ‘Never heard of him. Listen, friend, we’re a bit busy just now. Come back another time, would you.’
‘The gentleman investigating the crash of the aeroplane,’ Kamal insisted.
The sergeant remembered who Donaldson was. ‘There’s only the Commander here at the moment,’ he said.
‘That is the gentleman we are to see.’ Kamal sounded confident.
‘Why didn’t you say so then?’ The sergeant’s instinct was to tell this pair of wogs to clear off. But he knew there was an all-out search for evidence in progress. He called to the one duty constable who had not gone out to Vincent Square.
‘Here, Mike, show these two upstairs, will you? And come straight down again.’
In silence the Arabs followed the constable up the three flights, noting that the landings were exposed to view from the canteen and other rooms off it. Both men were on edge, surprised at the ease with which their bluff was succeeding. The constable knocked on Thompson’s door.
‘Come in.’
‘Two men about the air crash, sir.’
A moment later they were facing a strong-faced man with a tired, worried expression on his face.
‘This will be easy,’ thought Mohammed. ‘It is perfect. A corner office at the top of a building.’ He rapidly absorbed the scene. The Commander sat behind a wide desk bearing an ungainly metal lamp, and a telephone, with his peaked hat resting on a small white painted safe to the right and the window behind him. The door clicked shut behind them as the constable departed.
‘So you have some information?’ said Thompson, realizing in the same instant that his hunch had been right. What did not occur to him was that the appearance of these two Arabs so soon after the bomb explosion was no coincidence. The movement with which Mohammed pulled out the Makarov caught him unawares.
‘Do not move,’ snapped Kamal, in the same moment reaching for his own pistol and stepping back against the wall, out of the line of sight from the main window. Mohammed moved closer to the desk. Together they covered Thompson from two angles.
Thompson did not stir. Both his hands were on the desk and he kept them there. He was unarmed, and if there was an alarm bell in this office he did not know its whereabouts. ‘This is one for the book,’ he thought. ‘A hold-up inside the station.’ Aloud, he said coolly, ‘And what can I do for you two gentlemen?’
Mohammed pointed the Makarov at his head. Thompson recognized the make.
‘The documents that are guarded here,’ demanded Mohammed, wanting to have his say. ‘The plans of Abu Youssouf 73!’ In his excitement he was shouting.
‘Quieter!’ hissed Kamal, then turned back to Thompson. ‘The documents can be of no interest to your country. They are important only to us. Return them and give us safe conduct to Tripoli. Either that or we kill you.’
‘Very dramatic,’ remarked Thompson, remaining absolutely still. He was rapidly sizing up the situation. From previous experience with a siege he knew there were three cardinal principles in a hostage situation: to gain time; to gain the confidence of your captors; and to persuade them that they had no hope of success. The catch on this occasion was that the terrorists’ objective stood wrapped in brown paper behind his desk. He had to pray that they would not spot the package or would not ask what it contained. Certainly they did not seem to know what they were looking for.
‘There are two problems,’ he remarked with an air of detachment, as though his own life were in no way at stake.
Kamal reacted with immediate suspicion. ‘I see no problems.’
‘First,’ said Thompson calmly, ‘I am expendable. If you shoot me, that’s my bad luck. The government gives my widow a pension . . .’
‘The documents,’ Kamal began to raise his own voice. ‘We want the documents the Israeli was carrying.’
‘That is the second problem. So do we.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that we are searching for them too.’
‘That is nonsense!’ cried Kamal angrily. ‘Do not try to deceive us. We know all the baggages are here.’
Thompson paused. In spite of the danger, he felt a perverse pleasure at the success of his leak to Eckhardt – by God, he would get that bastard now! But the immediate question was for how long could he spin out this conversation and when David Chance would return. A plan was forming in his mind. First he wanted to give them something to think about.
‘If your Libyan friends told you the airline baggage was here,’ he said calmly, ‘they were wrong. The Customs have been insisting on examining it.’
The reference to the Libyans registered all right. Seeing bewilderment grow on their faces he pressed on. ‘Our difficulty has been that we do not know what the Israeli was carrying. Can you describe it? Perhaps then we can do a deal.’
Mohammed and Kamal exchanged glances and Mohammed muttered something.
‘You can safely talk in Arabic,’ suggested Thompson. ‘I shall not understand.’
It was true, even if making the suggestion was a risk. But the more they talked, the less likely they were to act. Once they realized that he could not follow their conversation, a tiny measure of trust would be established. Later, if this became a siege, external microphones would pick up every sound in the room. Translators and psychiatrists would advise the police outside. But it would become a siege only if they began to negotiate. If.
‘My friend is in favour of shooting you,’ said Kamal, as though announcing a proposition to a meeting.
Thompson shrugged his shoulders, still careful not to shift his hands, and looked straight at Kamal.
‘If that will give him satisfaction, go ahead. It will not gain you anything. All the baggage is in another building. If you kill me there will be no possibility of your reaching it. None at all.’
That was enough, Thompson decided. Let them chew it over. To his relief they began a hurried discussion, though the gun in Mohammed’s hand barely wavered. Thompson sat and waited. Suddenly Mohammed’s eye lit on the brown paper package, a corner of which was showing from behind the desk.
‘What is that?’ he demanded.
‘A parcel.’
‘Show me.’
Very slowly, very deliberately, making certain his movements did not alarm the gunmen, Thompson leant down and lifted the loosely wrapped briefcase on to the desk.
‘Take off the paper,’ commanded Mohammed.
Thompson began to unwrap it. There was no doubt in his mind that if they realized what it was they would shoot him and hope to escape.
Downstairs David Chance entered the building and called in at the station office. He had heard the explosion, distantly, and the wailing of the emergency vehicles’ horns.
‘What’s up?’ he inquired.
‘Bomb in Vincent Square, sir. Bloody awful mess. Injured several schoolkids.’
‘Is the Commander in?’
‘Couple of blokes with him, sir. Information about the air crash. Arabs, they looked like.’
Chance froze. There was too much happening at once. As far as he was concerned ‘Arabs’ meant ‘gunmen’.
‘When did they come in?’
‘Ten or eleven minutes ago.’
‘Is anyone else upstairs?’
‘All out in the square, I should think, sir.’
To the sergeant’s amazement Chance pulled out a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver that he carried in a shoulder holster under his sports coat, snapped it open and spun the chamber to check the rounds, closed the gun and cocked it. Like most police marksmen he preferred a revolver to a pistol. It was less likely to jam.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘The constable can hold the fort. We’ll go up nice and quietly. When I go in, belt in after me. I’ll take one, you take the other.’
Leading the way he climbed the stairs, moving fast but softly. On the top landing he tiptoed to the door and stood for a moment listening, holding a hand up for silence. Kamal’s harsh voice came distinctly through the thin wood.
‘Open the case. If you do not open the case we will kill you.’
With a single movement Chance turned the handle and pushed the door violently. It flew back, leaving him standing in the entrance, revolver in hand. Directly ahead, by the window, he saw a young Arab in a crumpled brown suit holding a pistol – Kamal. In the same instant he fired and leapt forward into the room. As he did so Thompson, who had already decided which of the desk ornaments was his best weapon, threw the heavy iron lamp at Mohammed and ducked. Mohammed fired but missed, his aim upset as the lamp crashed to the floor, caught short by its cord.
The sergeant charged through the doorway as Kamal slewed round and shot at Chance, who simultaneously fired again. Both men fell, Kamal squirming on the floor, coughing blood. Chance, hit in the thigh, reached out towards the doorpost for support but overbalanced. Mohammed glanced round, neatly dodged the sergeant and decided in the same split second that the game was up. He seized the briefcase, jumped over Chance and ran pell mell down the stairs, pursued belatedly by Thompson and the sergeant. Both men were obstructed by Chance, trying to pick himself up in the passage.
Mohammed reached the ground floor, burst through the door into the hall and paused long enough to fumble in his raincoat pocket for the grenade. As Thompson and the sergeant came after him, he yanked out the pin and lobbed the grenade towards them.
‘Get back,’ yelled Thompson. ‘Down.’
He retreated, throwing himself and the sergeant flat at the foot of the stairs. Two seconds later the grenade exploded, blowing out all the doors and showering the station office with broken glass.
Outside Mohammed sprinted along Rochester Row towards Victoria Street, Parliament Square and the safety of the crowd of demonstrators. If the organizers had fulfilled their promises, some of the marchers would have surged away from the Houses of Parliament across Parliament Square and towards Westminster Abbey. It was in one of the small streets behind the Abbey that Kamal had fixed their emergency rendezvous.
