41

Wimpey bar

Oxford Street

London

Lat = 51 degrees, 30.9 minutes North

Long = 0 degrees, 8.8 minutes West

Monday 18th September 1989 (same day)

Thirteen zero nine hours BST

The premises were about a quarter full, no one had noticed the small rucksack tucked well under one of the bench seats by the door.

People were seated drinking and eating with others coming and going.

Geoff Lane a manager at one of the large nearby retail stores had popped in for his regular lunchtime coffee to take away; he had just been served his coffee and was turning away from the counter towards the door when the device exploded.

A great burst of white light accompanied by a metallic crashing, overloaded his senses.

He felt what appeared to be a gust of wind that swept his coffee cup from his right hand; this was really a piece of shrapnel that had seared itself into his forearm.

When the flash passed, he found himself standing in amongst the smoke looking at the floor, “That’s my coffee,” he thought.

He lurched forward to pick it up and was immediately overcome by dizziness.

He then began to topple uncontrollably to his left, then forced himself to grasp onto a table.

Pain shot through his arm, he bent in half and tried to stand still, but only just managed to do so.

“Stand up, stand up he told himself. “Check you are okay.”

Touching his arms, he moved his hands up to his face, then down his torso and legs everything seemed in place.

“I am okay, everything is still here,” he said to himself.

As he stood in the dark, he heard screams of terror all around him and they were growing steadily louder.

The voices had always been there but Geoff could only now begin to hear them because his eardrums had been perforated in the blast.

Everything sounded as if he had his fingers in his ears.

He heard a female voice shouting, “we have to get out of here!”

She was with another woman both were in their late twenties, they were both screaming loud, terrified, and covered in debris and smoke.

Geoff stepped forward and grabbed both of them by their arms and said, “Calm down, you are okay, take it easy and check to see if you have been injured?”

Both women looked at him as if he was crazy, he had no idea how loud his voice was.

However, they both began checking themselves realising that they appeared to have all their limbs.

Geoff was distracted from the two women by a cry, “help me, please help me?”

The shallow male voice was coming from the far corner away from the main door, he couldn’t see where from exactly.

He staggered across the glass-strewn floor and through the smoke filled room towards the whimper.

He found the source of the cry, a man lying on the floor in a shredded suit and trousers trying to get up, the man looked up his eyes pleading for help.

Geoff bent forward and took the man’s hands to try to pull him up.

As he did so, the strength in his right arm gave out and he was forced to stop, He held his hand up and could see his wrist was pouring with blood, it was the hand in which he had been holding his coffee cup, the one that had caught the piece of shrapnel.

A young male teenager moved over to help and between them, they hauled the man up, and as they did so Geoff could see, the man’s left leg below the knee was missing and blood spewed from it.

They found an upturned chair righted it and placed him on it; Geoff quickly removed his trouser belt and used it as a tourniquet stemming the blood flow from the wounded leg.

The emergency services were now pouring onto the scene as they began arriving they were greeted by the sight of people staggering around on the pavement and road, with people lying on the ground and smoke spewing out of the premises.

They began picking their way through the debris and smoke to get to the injured people.

Geoff Lane had managed to make his way outside along with the young teenager that he now knew as Matt, they had sat down on the pavement near to the main door watching the emergency services do their stuff.

Geoff said to Matt, “we were luck today son?”

The youth looked at Geoff’s arm and said, “Shouldn’t you get that looked at?”

Geoff looked down at his arm; the bleeding appeared to have stopped and he replied, “Maybe in a few minutes I’ll find a medic,” he looked up at the sky thinking how lucky he had been and that was the last image and thought he ever had.

The secondary device in the litterbin detonated, as with the first device it tore through the surrounding zone, causing death and destruction.

People whom had survived the first blast that were close enough were killed, emergency response personnel were also caught up in the blast.

The final death toll would be forty-nine with another sixty-three seriously injured and eighteen with minor injuries, O’Rourke had made his mark.

He was now the most wanted man in the UK.