59
Ali Hassan slipped over the side of the boat and the coldness of the water took his breath away. An involuntary gasp escaped as he kicked his legs to keep his head above the waves, the sound lost to the wind.
The temperature outside was a brisk forty-four degrees, and he realized the River Thames was cold enough to cause rapid hypothermia. Something he should have recognized before, but he was used to the surf off the coast of Somalia. Even in the wintertime it was bearable.
He said, “Ismail, quickly. Pass me the explosives.”
Ismail saw him flailing, mistaking the urgency in his voice for a danger he couldn’t see. He slid across a box four feet square, covered in a tarp. It hit the water with a small splash, then began bobbing in the waves. He said, “What is it? What do you see?”
His teeth beginning to chatter, Ali Hassan said, “Nothing from man, but if we don’t get to shore soon, we’ll die out here. The water is freezing.”
Ismail laughed, the sound abruptly cut short as he slid into the darkness of the Thames himself. He sputtered, the liquid so cold he couldn’t form a sentence. The man in the boat said, “You want me to get closer? So you don’t have as far to swim?”
Ali looked toward his target and said, “No. Someone will see. We’re too close to the palaces and other government buildings. Too close to people watching. You keep going as planned. Away from here.”
The man turned the throttle of the outboard engine and the small boat puttered away, soon lost from sight in the darkness.
Ismail said, “If the rope isn’t there, we’re going to die. Or be forced to turn ourselves in to prevent it.”
Ali unrolled a length of twine from the box and tied it to his belt. He started to swim to the southern shore, dragging the box behind him. He said, “The sooner we get there, the sooner we’ll know.”
Roughly a hundred meters away, the edge of the river twinkled with lights, their target rising up and dominating the landscape, illuminated like a gigantic Christmas tree. The London Eye.
Originally called the Millennial Wheel, it was once the largest Ferris wheel in the world and still ranked in the top four, standing over four hundred feet in the air. Created to celebrate the turn of the century, thirty-two capsules dotted its circumference, each capable of holding twenty-five people. At full capacity, there would be eight hundred people in the capsules, slowly turning. Eight hundred bodies Ali intended to send crashing into the dark water of the River Thames.
They reached the outer glow emanating from the shore and continued on into the undercarriage of the loading platform. Ali swam to the nearest anchor pipe, a giant thing embedded deep into the footings at the bottom of the river.
Two feet above the waterline the pipe had a collar of steel with spikes pointing downward. A fixture designed to prevent someone like Ali from climbing the pipe to the platform above. Which would have sufficed if he were working alone. He was not.
Now inside the lighting given off by the giant wheel, Ali and Ismail swam among the pipes, sticking to the shadows and working their way to the right side of the loading platform, near the gift shop. Ismail went forward, searching the gloom, while Ali clung to a pylon, fighting the waves and keeping the box of explosives from slamming into him. Ali lost sight of him, then heard him hiss.
He let go and swam forward, struggling with the box against the current. He saw a knotted rope dancing above the river, Ismail halfway up it. Ali waited until he was on the platform, then tied the box to the end of the rope and climbed up himself.
Ismail helped him over the edge, the wind cutting through his wet clothes, causing him to shiver involuntarily. He said, “Where is Mansoor?”
“Inside. Hiding in the dark.”
“And the uniforms? Tell me he brought the uniforms. Something dry.”
Pulling up the box, Ismail said, “Yes. Go inside. Change.”
Thirty minutes later both men were dressed in uniforms for the cleaning crews, the man called Mansoor twitching nervously beside a large plastic bin on wheels. He said, “We must go. The safety crew will be here soon. They check everything. You need to get in and out before they arrive.”
“Everything? They look at everything?”
“Down here. The spindle and hub are checked by computer.”
“Okay. How will we get there?”
“Outside. The arms outside. They have a hatch that leads upward.”
“Do you clean them out ordinarily?”
“No, but I’ll protect you with the bin. You get inside, close the door, and you won’t be seen going up.”
“You will stay until we’re done?”
“No, no. I have to make my rounds. I’ll get rid of your wet clothes at the same time. How long do you need?”
Ali looked at Ismail, and he said, “Forty minutes.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll position again in forty minutes. But no more. The safety crew will be here in less than an hour, and they know me on sight. You they will question.”
They trundled out of the gift shop area as if they belonged, Mansoor pushing the bin and the other two holding brooms. They walked away from the loading platform to the two giant A-frame arms that held the wheel in the air.
Built as a cantilever, the enormous wheel was supported on one side only, the arms leaning sixty-five degrees before mating to the hub two hundred feet in the air, allowing the wheel to extend out over the river. Four sets of giant cables buried one hundred feet deep kept the entire assembly from falling over.
Seamus had stated that it would take too many explosives to destroy the hub and spindle at the center of the wheel, and he was right, but the unique architecture had one Achilles’ heel—the cables. The entire wheel was held upright much like a person leaning backward and holding on to a rope tied to a tree. Cut the rope, and the person falls. Cut the cables, and the arms—already leaning out over the River Thames—would topple, bringing the entire wheel down, with all eight hundred people inside screaming on the way.
Some would be rescued. Some would be crushed. Most would drown trying to escape the capsule. But all would contribute to the spectacular nature of the attack.
Mansoor parked the bin next to a steel hatch at the base of the giant arm, blocking the view of the various security cameras. The small aperture looked not unlike something seen on ships, an oval piece of metal surrounded by bolts. He scurried low, unlocked the hatch, then stood, making a show of sweeping the concrete, and said, “Hurry. Go.”
Ismail and Ali scrambled inside, hearing the door lock closed behind them. They looked at each other, realizing they were trapped. Ali shrugged and began climbing a ladder, dragging the box behind him. Ismail sighed, hoisting the box on his shoulder and beginning to follow.
Fifteen minutes later, they exited onto the scaffolding underneath the spindle at the center of the wheel, two hundred feet in the air. They paused for a moment, breathing heavily, the dragging of the explosives having taken its toll. Ismail looked at his watch, then scuttled to the far end, finding where the giant cables joined the hub. He pointed to the flange of steel holding the anchor point of the cables and said, “Here. We cut here. Open the box.”
Ali did so, saying, “You mean the cable?”
“No. The steel. We can shatter it with the RDX. Cutting the cable will be much harder. We don’t have plastic explosives to form around the cable, so most of the power would be lost. Breaking those flanges off, though, will be easy.”
Ali nodded, not truly understanding but trusting Ismail’s knowledge. In short order, both of the outer flanges were prepared, a ribbon of RDX on either side of the steel, slightly offset from each other. The result would be an explosive force that cut through the hardened metal, separating the flange from the spindle. Ismail finished by coating both explosive packages with white spray paint, making them blend into the color scheme of the spindle. When he was done, he armed the detonators and asked, “How long for the timer?”
Ali said, “One P.M. on Saturday.”
Ismail looked at him in shock. “You want these to sit here for a day and a half?”
“Yes. I checked. In the winter, the only time the wheel is full is on the weekends. We do it today, we won’t get the impact.”
Ismail said, “Who cares about the impact? We aren’t claiming credit. Let’s set it for today.”
“No. Do as I ask. I know what I told that man Clover, but I’m taking pictures when we’re done here. We’ll get his hostages, let him gloat, then claim this for our own. With proof. Then we’ll really leverage our payment.”
Ismail smiled and prepared the timer, saying, “Okay. But we might get nothing if they find our work.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
The spindle end cables complete, they crawled forward on the catwalk, locating the two cables that attached to the hub and repeating the procedure, coating both packages with paint. When they were done, Ismail set his digital watch, then said, “Okay. Go back to the outward cables. Press the red buttons when I signal. I need them all to go off fairly closely.”
Ali crawled the fifty feet to the end of the scaffold, feeling vertigo from the wind and the drop beneath the grate. He found both red switches and looked back. Ismail nodded, his hands on his own explosive detonators. Ali clicked and returned, finding Ismail setting the timer on his watch. Ali said, “Okay, what’s next?”
Ismail said, “Nothing. We’re done. Next is this wheel falling in the river.”
Ali smiled. “Then let’s go see about our payment.”