The Angel by Mark Dawson Page A

the square as another three police cars raced south. By the time he had crossed the stalled jam of traffic around the monument, he had counted ten, and overhead the first helicopter was clattering to the scene.
    He ran to the entrance of Charing Cross station, but the metal gate had been pulled across. A harassed member of staff was telling people that there had been an incident on the Undergroun d an d that the whole network was suspended. He climbed the stairs again, the muscles in his legs burning from the exertion, and looked around. He saw a bus. He didn’t notice the number or the destination, but it had its doors open, and it looked as if it was still running. He climbed aboard, stuffed a hand into his pocket and fumbled around until he found a pound coin. He dropped it in the driver’s tray and clambered up to the top deck. There was a spare seat a third of the way down, and he slumped down in it.
    The woman next to him had her phone out. She was reading a page from the BBC News website. He saw the word ‘bomb’ before a gout of vomit pulsed up from the roil of his stomach. He fought it back, the harsh acidity burning the back of his throat.
    The bus lumbered away into the crush of traffic.
    Whitehall was jammed now, too.
    He watched through the windows as four armed policemen sprinted south, their weapons cradled before them.

Chapter Twenty-One
    A amir had called the number Mohammed had given him thirty minutes after the bombs had been reported on the news, just as the story was switching to the drama inside the Houses of Parliament. The boy had called on a public phone, as he had been instructed. That was good. He had been frantic. That was not good. Mohammed had spent the first five minutes just calming him down. He had given him the address of the warehouse and then made preparations for his arrival.
    Now that he was done, he put on his coat, collected his cell phone and the silenced Beretta M9 and went outside to his van. The warehouse was on Seabright Street. It was a half mile to the west of Bethnal Green Tube station. The entire Tube network was suspended, so he had instructed Aamir to catch a bus that would deposit him on the Old Bethnal Green Road at the stop opposite the Tesco Metro. When he arrived, he was to call him from the public phone box outside the Coral betting shop.
    His van was parked fifty yards to the south, nestled between a moped and a dirty white panel van. It was a plain Ford Transit, dented and dirty, and bought for cash. It disappeared into the background, completely unobtrusive. The driving position was raised and offered him an excellent view of the warehouse and the street. The main road was several turnings away, and there were no cameras between it and here.
    He had cleared his property from the warehouse that morning, transferring it into the back of the van. He had planned to move on once the operation had concluded. It was unwise to stay in one place for too long. He had a list of safe houses that would accommodate him for as long as he decided to stay in London. The next one was in Leytonstone, to the east.
    He sat in the van and waited for the boy to call again, watching the news on his iPad. His mood soured as it became clear that the full, expansive goals of the operation had not been met. He already knew that the first bomb, the one on the train, had not been detonated. Worse, the bulletins eventually confirmed that the six attackers had not been able to get into the chamber of the House of Commons. On that level, it had been a failure.
    But it had been encouraging in other ways.
    The reporters had switched their attention from the carnage outside the station to the Palace of Westminster as soon as it became clear that the drama unfolding within was pressing and happening in real time. Several reporters covering PMQs had been stranded inside the building, and they provided furtive and fearful updates, whispering into their cell phones. There were dispatches from inside