And it makes her furious because the school has a fantastic kind of innocence, if innocence is openness uncorrupted by prejudice, and she admires whoever fought for it because you don’t get this thoughtless tolerance without people taking risks, putting themselves on the line. Who was the first teacher to openly declare she was lesbian to the kids and then give them their geography homework? (Though in a school like this they probably don’t believe in homework.) And now a school that should represent a microcosm of the UK, diverse and tolerant, is being punished for it.
‘Since the end of June, Jamie Alton has had an online alias: “Aryan Knight”,’ Lysander says. ‘Using the alias Aryan Knight, Alton started interacting with 14 Words in August. Deakin was already a member of this terrorist group and the initial traffic between 14 Words and Aryan Knight was on Deakin’s computer on the dark net.
‘14 Words sent Alton links to white supremacist forums, blogs and propaganda videos. I’ll send you the details. As well as the online interface, I am pretty certain there were also face-to-face meet-ups, using codes for places and people.’
Usman Pabey, a young IT forensics analyst, joins the briefing.
‘I’ve been working under Lysander’s direction. At the beginning of September, Alton increased the security on his own laptop. By the end of September he was having near-constant interaction with 14 Words on his own computer as well as Deakin’s, at one point receiving up to forty messages a day from them.’
‘So we can pretty much chart a textbook radicalization process,’ Stuart says.
‘Radicalization explains how Victor Deakin persuaded Jamie to join him in this attack,’ Rose says. ‘Victor would have groomed him first and he was lonely, probably depressed, so vulnerable to radicalization.’
Beth Alton was right, Victor alone wouldn’t have been powerful enough to utterly change her son. Victor needed an organization to get Jamie to cross a line into murder and be a wingman for his attack. It was probably Victor who came up with the nom de guerre ‘Aryan Knight’ for Jamie.
‘14 Words vet all new recruits,’ Stuart says. ‘They’re paranoid about being infiltrated. Alton would have had to have a personal recommendation by Deakin.’
‘A week ago, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram accounts were set up in the name Aryan Knight,’ Usman says, ‘with the banner “100%” or “18”; so far there’s been no activity but we’re monitoring the accounts.’
‘100% means pure Aryan blood,’ Stuart Dingwall says. ‘18 corresponds to the first and eighth letter of the alphabet, which are the initials of Adolf Hitler.’
‘How does this affect negotiation with Jamie Alton?’ Bronze Commander asks.
‘Negotiating with a radicalized terrorist is extremely difficult,’ Dannisha says. ‘Sometimes impossible. We are up against intensive brainwashing. We don’t know how extensive.’
Rose looks at the screen that shows the pottery room; it’s snowing too hard to see anyone at the window. What would she say to Camille Giraud if she could speak to her? Could she tell this sensitive, brave art teacher that they can get her and the children safely out?
Only if there is something left of the boy Jamie Alton used to be; only if they can talk to that boy. Jamie did apparently break away from Victor Deakin on the 31st of October. Did Victor instruct Jamie to say he’d broken off their friendship? Ask him to broadcast that he thought Victor was a psycho? It would be safer for his plan if nobody linked the two of them, if there was no reason for anyone to watch Jamie in the run-up to the attack. And Halloween, with its devils and ghosts, masks and disguises, is a date Victor would have chosen to deceive people; there’s a vicious playfulness to it.
But maybe on that one evening Jamie saw Victor for what he really is and tried to go back to his parents, to his old friend Zac, his liberal school and family tugging him back to the boy he used to be. And perhaps a part of that ‘old Jamie’ remains and he can be reasoned with and he’ll let the children and their teacher go. But she fears it’s unlikely.
‘Detective Inspector Polstein?’ Bronze Commander asks.
‘I think our chance of getting through to Jamie Alton, that there is anyone left to get through to, is very small.’
‘Have we been able to establish any communication?’ Bronze Commander asks.
‘He hasn’t answered his phone to his parents or to us,’ Dannisha says. ‘His mother has a special ringtone; if his ringer is on he’ll know it’s her calling.’
‘Get the parents to keep on trying, and we do too,’ Bronze Commander says. ‘What about Victor Deakin? Does belonging to this terror organization tell us anything more about what he intends to do?’
‘Being a member of a white terrorist organization might be good news in one way,’ Stuart Dingwall says. ‘As Inspector Polstein said, Deakin is intelligent enough to know the police will shoot him dead if he opens fire. Unlike radical Islamist terrorists, where suicide is frequently part of the plan, far-right terrorists often aim to survive.’
Rose knows he’s right; the Michigan State University report confirmed it. And you only have to think of far-right terrorists in the dock following an atrocity: the murderer in Pittsburgh, the murderer in Charlottesville, the murderer of scores of young people in Norway raising his – very much alive – arm in a Nazi salute.
‘Victor won’t die for any cause other than himself,’ Rose says. ‘And as I said, psychopaths rarely commit suicide. But he could still want to go out in what he sees as a blaze of glory.’
‘And he’s still waiting to build up an audience?’
‘Yes. Perhaps he’s waiting for the USA to wake up. It’s 6.13 in New York.’
‘Do you know why Deakin joined 14 Words?’ Stuart asks.
‘I think he wanted to use them to radicalize Jamie Alton, so he’d have an accomplice,’ Rose says.
‘And access to weapons,’ Stuart says. ‘He bought the guns himself, but this terrorist organization probably found him a dealer. More than that, like Generation Identity, they send UK recruits to military-style anti-Islam training camps in Europe. Deakin has been out of the country twice in the last six months, but Alton hasn’t. So Deakin, perhaps others, trained Alton.’
‘And has Victor Deakin been radicalized too?’ Bronze Commander asks.
‘I doubt it; he just found a natural home,’ Rose says. ‘A white supremacist terror organization fits a Caucasian narcissistic psychopath. But this terror group are using him too, to carry out this attack for them.’
Very useful to have a psychopath, a man utterly devoid of conscience, in your ranks; all the most ruthless paramilitary groups have them; they crawl out of the woodwork whenever a terrorist organization goes recruiting.
‘Does it help us negotiate with Deakin?’ Bronze Commander asks.
‘I think he has already decided what he wants to do,’ Rose says. ‘If he reads our texts, even if he talks to us, he’s not going to change his plan.’
While the discovery of 14 Words is relevant, and deeply worrying, for Jamie Alton and for the children held captive by him in the pottery room, it doesn’t tell her more about Victor Deakin.