Protecting Miss Dawes - a job like any other

Chapter 1: Charles

Monday morning, and I, Special Protection Officer Charles James, was called to a meeting with my superior officer, Chief Superintendent Lorraine Craddock, but I knew that I had nothing to worry about. If anything, I expected praise for my actions during the weekend. There had been times when I had strayed from given orders and gotten bollocks for it, but I felt confident this would not be one of those times.

Sunday afternoon I had found myself on the train from Bath, where me and my son Sam had been visiting my parents over the weekend. Now we were headed back to London and Sam was asleep in his seat. I had been reading a book, but habit made me vigilant as always and I had spotted a man behaving strangely on the platform before entering the train. The man talked in a mobile phone, but when the conversation ended, he smashed the phone into pieces and then threw it into the trash bin. I watched as the man entered the train and then lost sight of him, but an uneasy feeling had planted itself in my gut. Something was not right.

A while later, the conductor walked through the aisle checking tickets. When she walked past a toilet ahead, I saw her knocking the door, but no one answered. She continued her round, but on the way back knocked the toilet door again - still no response. I felt a chill along my spine, a certain sign that something was wrong. I glanced at Sam, but he was fast asleep so after a brief hesitation I got up and followed the conductor. When I caught up with her in her booth, she had just gotten off the phone and seemed shaken. I identified myself as a police officer from the Metropolitan Police, and asked what was going on and then she confided that she had just been informed that there might be a suicide bomber on the train and they would stop at Barnet Shed, a derelict depot, where SCO19 would board the train. However, it was seven minutes to go until then - plenty of time for a potential suicide bomber to act. Plenty of time for us all to blow up. I thought for a while, then told the conductor to stay connected to me on her mobile phone, and at my signal unlock the train doors – I would try to throw the bomber off the train the minute he came out of the toilet. I was counting on him to come out before detonating, to achieve the maximum number of casualties, and that would be the one opportunity to stop him - at high risk but better than not acting at all.

I left the conductor and with heart thumping fast from adrenaline stood waiting outside the toilet door, my eyes fixed on the lock. When it turned from red to green, I told the conductor to unlock the doors and prepared myself to attack the man... but the man came out, looking completely normal, no explosive vest to be seen and he just gave me, a hoovering stranger, a surprised glance before he went away along the aisle. I stood there confused for a few seconds, I had been so certain, all my instincts had told me... and then I thought I ought to clear the toilet so the man had not left a bomb in there. The man's behaviour had been so odd earlier, I had felt so convinced it must be him and... I opened the door and stared into the frightened eyes of a shaking woman, dressed in an explosive vest, in her hand holding a trigger. The man was not planning on doing this on his own, he had left the unpleasant deed to his wife.

Half an hour later it was all over. The train had made the stop as planned, passengers, including Sam, had been evacuated and the police had boarded it. I had stayed with the woman, Nadia. Talking calmly to her, I had managed convinced her not to pull the trigger, instead handing it to the police and give herself in. I had also convinced the police not to shoot her, although words had not been enough. I had had to shield her with my own body because some police had seemed a bit too trigger happy – and I shielded her because looking into her eyes I was convinced she would not push the button, she wanted to yield, and I wanted to save her. Avoid any unnecessary deaths. And so, instead of shooting her, they carefully stripped her off the vest and the whole thing ended without any casualties, the suicide bomber and her husband taken into custody and I was the reluctant hero of the day although my name would be kept out of the media spotlight to ensure I would not become a target myself in case there had been any accomplices.