‘Why would anyone want to hurt Basi?’ Rafi asks.
‘I’m so sorry, Rafi, the people attacking the school are white supremacist terrorists. They are wicked people, shameful people. Please hide. We’ll find Basi as soon as we can, I promise.’
* * *
Basi is hated. He is hated. They are why the school is under attack.
He limps towards the gate out of the playground, the shrapnel working its way deeper into his leg.
Hated.
He tries to run over the thick snow towards the gate but a hole opens up – their worst hole – and it’s snowing in Aleppo.
Five-year-old Basi is asleep on a beanbag and hasn’t seen it’s snowing, but Rafi’s watching out of the window, waiting for Baba and Karam to come home. They were taken by Assad’s men two days ago, to the airport, they think, but nobody knows; whispers that there are torture cells under the airport, whispers that burn his ears as he just stands and waits. Mama pacing and pacing and not sleeping, not for two nights.
A loud noise on the street wakes Basi. Rafi sees a truck pull up but Basi only sees that it’s snowing and is too excited about the snow to remember to stay inside and runs out.
Think of a face, quickly think of a face. The old man on the boat, his beard with salt in it, smelling of vomit and urine and excrement, as they all did. He’d been a judge and talked to Rafi about being a lawyer before that, and before that a student as Rafi would be one day. He’d talked to him about art and architecture and literature and philosophy, all through that first terrible night on the boat, as if Rafi was his equal, as if he wanted to have a proper conversation with him; and in the morning, he gave Basi his last lemon, because lemons help with seasickness.
He’s back in Junior School’s playground, each step sinking into the snow.
But still he sees his father and brother lying on the road, snow falling on to them, and he cannot blink it away. Will never be able to blink it away.
Last term his English class read King Lear. ‘Enter Gloucester his eyes put out.’ Mrs Kale saw his reaction and must’ve guessed something and was kind, but he was glad there was that same violence in the play, wanted it pinned down and examined for what it was. He’d understood then why Baba quoted from playwrights and poets: he was using great culture to articulate the opposite of culture. ‘Did Heaven look on, and would not take their part?’
He left Mama in that terrible place. He hasn’t spoken to her since he and Basi were in Egypt, over two years ago. He doesn’t know if she’s still alive. Mr Marr and various charities have tried to find her but no one has been able to.
Daphne wanted him to play Macduff or Young Seward in Macbeth, but he asked to play the part of Fleance, because he is the one who runs away.
* * *
A violent gust of wind rocks the command and control vehicle as if they are momentarily on water. Police UAVs are looking for Basi, and a helicopter pilot is determined to search, but the area where he could be is huge and visibility appalling.
Rose is part of an on-screen briefing.
‘How badly has Rafi been injured?’ Bronze Commander asks.
‘He says he’ll be okay,’ Rose says. ‘I think he’s being brave. Medics are on standby for when we can get to him.’
‘Bombs in fairy stories, what in hell are we dealing with?’ Bronze Commander asks.
‘Islamic State hid bombs in copies of the Quran when they left Ramadi,’ Stuart Dingwall says. ‘Left them lying in the street; and there were bombs in booby-trapped books in a village near Mosul. They also planted IEDs in teddies and dolls.’
The cowardly inadequate bastards are copying each other.
‘Did anyone see it being left?’ Bronze Commander asks.
‘No, but we think it must have been this morning when parents dropped off their children,’ Stuart says. ‘Lots of people going in and out, siblings too. Jamie Alton or Victor Deakin could have posed as an older brother. Junior school staff would never have met Victor so wouldn’t know to be suspicious. And his mother’s Mini is parked in Junior School car park.’
‘Rafi thought he heard someone coming after him,’ Rose says. ‘After ten, when Jamie Alton was outside the pottery room and Victor Deakin was in Old School. Rafi has delusional PTSD, so he doesn’t trust himself to be reliable. He says he managed to lose him.’
Lysander comes on to the screen.
‘We have decrypted some of the transactions on the dark net made by 14 Words. They bought a Ruger MKII with Outback II Suppressor and subsonic ammo. They also bought a pair of Steiner military series binoculars. There are other items more heavily encrypted that we can’t decipher.’
A man dressed in the distinctive grey combat uniform worn by counterterrorism specialist firearms officers, CTSFOs, joins the briefing. He introduces himself as Safa Rahman. His snowy facemask and goggles have been pushed off his face, a link between their removed environment of screens and computers and what is physically happening at the school.
‘Steiner military binoculars are used by armed forces, often for perimeter and border patrols,’ Rahman says. ‘They’re sophisticated and powerful, sharp images and a wide field of view.’
‘The binoculars that the girl on TV saw glinting at the top of the high ropes course,’ Bronze Commander says. ‘And the guns?’
‘They’ve been shopping for the quietest weaponry out there,’ Rahman says. ‘The Ruger MKII with a suppressor, a silencer, is about as quiet as you can get. The subsonic ammo means that the bullets don’t break the sound barrier, so are virtually soundless.’
‘So, if there is a third man out there, he’s using a gun that we can’t detect,’ Bronze Commander says. ‘But Jamie Alton is flaunting his gun and Victor Deakin must know we think he’s got a similar weapon to Alton’s. Okay, so they don’t know we’ve found out their semi-automatics have been converted into fully automatics, but they haven’t been discreet about their weapons.’
Rose agrees and thinks that even the rifle shots at the beginning of the attack were part of a game, rather than any attempt at concealment.
‘Locating a shooter with that kind of gun and suppressor and bullets is bloody hard, if not impossible,’ Safa Rahman says. ‘I’d say this guy doesn’t want us to take him out.’
‘We don’t know for sure yet whether there’s a third man,’ Lysander says; he looks pale and Rose likes him for this leak of emotion, because he’s afraid for Basi and Rafi, as she is, and doesn’t want this third man to be definite.
‘Detective Inspector Polstein, what do you think?’
‘My guess is that if he exists he’s not malleable like Jamie; nor does he want to go out in a blaze of murderous glory if that’s what Victor is planning. I would imagine him to be older. He wants to kill Muslims, punish the school and live.’
‘We should run the scenario,’ Bronze Commander says. ‘A third man on campus could have acted as lookout up on the high ropes course this morning, using the military binoculars.’
Rose thinks that even if there was a third man up there this morning, Victor Deakin was probably up there as well at some point, surveying the school from high in his eyrie; he’d have enjoyed the feeling of elevated power. But he’d have also got bored, probably wouldn’t have hung around being lookout.