27

IT WAS 10.00hrs Friday morning and Sergeant Hugh Campbell had just started the third cup of coffee of his twelve hour tour of duty.He was the officer in charge of the ‘ring of steel’ encircling Buchanan Street Underground and neighbouring Queen Street Station and he was bored shitless.

Everyone had seen the video of ‘that nutjob’ Tariq broadcast on the main news channels and his threats and his calls to the believers to unite under the colours of the World Islamic Front. ‘The big difference is that this time we are ready for you,’ Campbell thought as he picked up his coffee which had been balanced on the butt end of his Heckler and Koch.

The morning rush hour over, things had settled down. Buchanan Street, as he looked down it, was a lot quieter than it usually would have been on a pleasant autumn morning – as good as it gets for the retail therapy junkies of the city and its suburbs.

Trussed up in the cumbersome poundage of uniform and bulletproof vest, with the additional weight of his weapon, Campbell sweated profusely and cursed silently.

Normally, at this time on a Friday morning he was sitting with his body armour off, enjoying a fag and a coffee in his office at the airport, perusing the security cameras away from the fearful gaze of the Glaswegian public; a public who were almost in a state of meltdown despite all the assurances that, this time, Glasgow was ready and that Tariq and his Jihadists would be caught and brought to justice sooner rather than later.

Looking round his detail Campbell checked that the lads were all awake and not dozing in the sunlight.

“All right Jimmy you got your finger on the trigger – but not too itchy I hope? Keep your eyes peeled boys, these bastards are cunning, cold-blooded killers but they ain’t doin’ any bleedin’ killin’ on Shug Campbell’s watch. Comprendez?”

“Yes Sergeant!” was the chorused response.

Campbell checked his watch; nearly 10.30hrs. His mind was already straying to the weekend which he would spend up on the golf course at Dougalston. A late-comer to the game, Campbell and his best mate Albert would spend Saturday afternoon engaged in a barely amicable tussle on the course he considered to be the city’s toughest north-west of the Clyde.

Shuggie had developed a strategy he was sure would bring him a rare victory over Albert and guarantee him the mythical sub-90 round he had been unable to produce in five years up at ‘Dougy’.

As if by magic his text message alert went and he gazed at the screen. The name ‘Uncle’ – his not so affectionate nickname for Albert – appeared and he scrolled down to the message.

All right bawheid? You up for another spankin’? Winner buys beers and grub at the Burnbrae. Up ye!

A typical pre-match wind up from ‘Uncle’. But this time Shuggie was going to make sure some selective iron play, as opposed to his usual driver ‘Russian roulette’, would provide him with the accuracy to enjoy a rare afternoon of triumphalism.

Campbell replied, Bring yer cheque book nanny. Yer mine.

Campbell’s ears picked up the shrill tones of youthful voices filling the air. Turning to his left he observed a group of school kids led by two teachers making their way out of the underground entrance. He smiled benignly as the party of about 60 drew level with his men and the lead teacher, a middle-aged female, approached him.

“Hi Sergeant, all quiet I hope?”

He nodded before adding reassuringly, “Yep. Lovely day for a school outing, Miss. Where are you all heading?”

The teacher – identified by her name badge as Mrs Fabien, an attractive if slightly prim brunette – smiled back and Campbell thought, ‘Amazing the effect a uniform and a firearm has.’

She gushed, “Oh, we’re off to the Museum of Modern Art today. An ideal outing for P7 kids.”

Campbell smiled again. “Have a nice day now.”

But the sergeant’s attention was soon elsewhere as a shouted warning from Jimmy to his left registered. “Sarge, we’ve got incoming! Looks like a delivery truck for Sainsbury’s. It’s comin’ right up Buchanan Street – that cannae be right?”

Campbell saw the delivery truck proceeding up Buchanan Street at a casual pace, letting pedestrians make way as it drove.

The lack of any great haste on the part of the driver provided some reassurance to Campbell. Twenty-three years police service told him not to jump the gun (he smiled inwardly at his pun) when making a judgement on the threat level being presented. But that judgement was complicated by the presence of the school party in the possible field of fire.

The group had already started to file through his men down into Buchanan Street two-by-two, led by their teacher. Taking stock of his increasingly complicated position, Campbell knew that safety and caution had to come first. He had to get the school party out of the position which placed them potentially as the filling in a lead sandwich. On top of that there was civilian pedestrian traffic milling about.

Campbell knew he had to get beyond the school party and put himself and some of his men between them and the delivery van.

“Okay boys swing ‘em into ready position. Jimmy, you and Shaun follow me. We need to get in front of the school party and make sure there is no threat from our lost delivery driver. The rest of you make sure your full attention is on me and act upon my signal.”

Only half of the school party had gone beyond Campbell’s position and he strode purposefully but calmly down the left side of their line. As he did so he registered, with a shudder that went right through his powerful frame, that the Sainsbury’s van was picking up speed. Pedestrians were diving out of its way as it shot up Buchanan Street heading straight for Mrs Fabien and her group of fresh-faced school kids.

Campbell had no doubt what that meant and translated his fears into a concise order to his two subordinates. “Right lads at the double, we have to get beyond the kids. Van oncoming and picking up speed. Clear and present danger oncoming, fire at my command.”

Campbell and his men ran down the line until they were level with Mrs Fabien and he barked out a command to the startled teacher who was slowly becoming aware of the danger coming her way.

“Miss, kids, stop right there!”

Thankfully she did as she was bid despite her obviously raw fear and instantly ordered, “Children, stop!”

Campbell and his two officers had now gone beyond the school party and his responses were driven by an autopilot from years of training and drilling.

He barked out the command, “On me!” aware that the sound of youthful chatter was now being replaced by a mixture of shouts and screams.

Campbell strode in front of his officers and raised his hand in a gesture to stop that he already knew the van driver would ignore.

The distance was less than 100 yards and he could make out a white cloth bandana wrapped around the driver’s head. The van’s speed had increased and Campbell knew he was about to take the ultimate gamble. He was going to command his men to open fire on a truck that was almost certainly carrying mass death.

The van was now only 50 yards away and heading straight for Campbell and his men, the school party and the underground entrance. There was no time to move the kids. If the van was packed full of explosives and a stray bullet hit them a few yards would make no difference to the children’s survival. Likely as not the delivery van carried a pay load that would wipe out everything and anything in Buchanan Street that morning.

“This is it boys. Aim for the driver and pray we hit him. Fire!”

The three Heckler and Kochs opened fire simultaneously. The air filled with screams and shouting.

But the van kept on coming.

“Eat lead, you motherfucker,” Campbell spat through gritted teeth as he pumped lead from his firearm into the cabin of the oncoming van.

Still the driver remained untouched by the rain of vicious projectiles splintering through his windscreen.

Campbell could make out the driver’s lips moving and his look of dripping evil.

‘Shit, thirty yards to go before impact; it’s going to take a fuckin’ miracle now, come on Big Man, do us a turn,’ Campbell pleaded with the man upstairs.

He could feel the grip on his rifle becoming cold and clammy as the realisation hit home that he and everyone else in Buchanan Street that morning were about to meet their maker. Anger ripped through him. But anger was a wasted emotion at a time like this and he forced his breathing to even out and sighted the driver’s head, aiming for the scrawled writing he could now see on his headgear.

He pulled the trigger again. “Buy it, you bastard, buy it!” His heart seemed to stop beating as time stretched into a new dimension.

At last Campbell’s prayers were answered and the driver’s head smashed forward into the steering wheel as the sound of the vehicle horn punctured the air. But the driver’s death brought a new and potentially even more disastrous scenario to the fore as the van began to zigzag wildly out of control.

Campbell knew the vehicle had to be brought to a stop as quickly as possible. “Aim for the tyres lads,” he barked and a triple payload of lead was unloaded into the tyres. The front two rubber spheres burst under the volley.

It was a gamble; although this might ensure the van did not plough right through his men and the school party, the now deflated tyres might lead to a collision and therefore a detonation of the cargo of death he had little doubt was packed inside.

But as the van continued to slow Campbell knew he had got lucky. The driver was dead and somehow none of the repeated rounds his men had pumped into the cabin had penetrated the rear of the vehicle where he assumed the explosives were packed.

Now he needed to make his own luck.

“Jimmy, take this,” he said, quickly throwing his H&K to his number two before adding, “Get the school party back inside the underground entrance if you can.” Jimmy nodded and Campbell sprinted towards the van’s driver’s door.

Drawing level he launched himself at the half-opened window and latched on. The driver’s head was buried in the steering wheel. Forcing his hand through the window Campbell tried to grab it to straighten the vehicle’s course. He knew he had to get inside the cab and somehow bring the vehicle to a stop, aware that any form of collision would mean carnage.

The van’s speed had decreased significantly and Campbell realised it could not have been going at more than 20 mph. The shuddering coursing through the cab and the screeching of metal on tarmacadam was testament to the fact it was running on wheel rims rather than rubber. But still he had to bring it to a halt.

Quickly he felt inside the door, located the window’s handle and wound it down. He forced his body through the window and on top of the driver’s corpse. Just out of reach lay the handbrake he needed to pull. Campbell grabbed the driver by his bandana and yanked him back into an upright position while simultaneously shooting out his free hand to pull on the handbrake, using the other to hold the steering wheel straight.

The vehicle shuddered once more and then slowly, agonisingly, ground to a halt. Campbell breathed again. But he knew full well his work was far from done.

His ears picked up the harsh sounds of barked commands from Jimmy’s familiar voice.

“Clear the area immediately; clear the area immediately.”

“Thank Christ,” he thought. Jimmy had been alive to the danger that although the driver had been killed and the van brought to a halt the vehicle was still full of ‘live’ explosives that could blow at any minute.

Disengaging himself from the driver’s corpse Campbell eventually managed to get himself out of the cabin. As he did so he took pride from the way his men had fanned out and were automatically clearing Buchanan Street of pedestrian traffic in a steady and calm manner, showing little concern for their own safety. He also saw that the last of the school kids had just disappeared down the underground entrance.

Looking over at Jimmy he saw his number two was in the process of calling for bomb disposal back-up and, given that an army unit had been centrally located for just such an event, Campbell took some comfort from the fact it would be here momentarily.

Placing an armed cordon around the delivery van, there was nothing more Campbell could do but wait. As he tasted the salty sweat slipping into his mouth the sergeant had to admit all his prayers had been answered by what he silently told himself had been ‘the miracle on Buchanan Street’ that Friday morning.