with police and military. People were being stopped and questioned, their bags sifted through. People of all ages and racial backgrounds, not just young men of Middle Eastern appearance. The German chancellor had appeared repeatedly on the news broadcasts Purkiss had caught, her face tight with defiance: Life goes on. We will not permit ourselves to be cowed by terrorist murderers . And she’d exhorted the people of Germany to cooperate with the security forces, to accept that in the short term at least, there would be inconveniences to be endured.
It all posed a problem for Purkiss. The police would be on the lookout for any signs of stealthiness in anybody within the airport terminal. A man without luggage would attract suspicion.
And the visible security presence was one thing. There’d be scores, perhaps hundreds, of plainclothes personnel strewn throughout the terminal as well. Purkiss had identified four of them, three men and a woman, within just five minutes of entering the terminal through the arrival gate.
He’d bought a fresh set of clothes at Fiumicino Airport, choosing chinos and smart trainers and an overcoat and ditching the duffel jacket in one of the bins. The United Airlines flight had been only half full, and he’d had no trouble securing a seat at short notice.
At eight fifty on Wednesday morning, less than two hours after he’d boarded in Rome, Purkiss reached Frankfurt. He did an initial sweep of the terminal with several purposeful strides from one end to the other, giving the impression he was a man on his way to an appointment of some kind. That was when he’d spotted the four undercover security personnel, though they didn’t seem to have taken an interest in him. Afterwards, he settled himself at the counter of a coffee shop, from which he could survey a fair stretch of the concourse, and ordered breakfast.
While he ate, and watched, he caught up with the news through four papers he’d bought from a kiosk, two of them German and two British. There was little difference between them in the known facts they relayed. Flight TA15 was thought to have been brought down by a relatively low-yield explosion within the cabin, which had torn open the fuselage and done enough damage to cause the pilot and co-pilot to lose control. Of the 148 passengers, seventeen had been nationals of Muslim countries. Suspicion was already being cast on one man in particular, Umair Jat, a citizen of Pakistan who had previously been investigated by the authorities in Islamabad for possible links to radical jihadist groups, though nothing had been proven.
Much was made in the news reports of two other facts. One was the telephoned admission by a supposed spokesman for the Islamic Caliphate in Asia that the ICA was responsible for the killings. The German Security Service and the US State Department had separately issued confirmations that the admission was likely to be genuine. The other noteworthy detail was the arrest of a man at the departure gate of a Swissair flight, a few minutes before TA15 took off. The man was a Jordanian, Adnan Hanahneh, who’d been observed to be acting suspiciously as he approached the gate.
Two hours after being taken into custody, the Jordanian had died. The details were sketchy, but officials said he had probably taken his own life by means of a cyanide capsule he’d managed to keep hidden from his captors.
Hanahneh was, the newspapers speculated, probably part of a double act with whomever had carried the bomb aboard the Turkish Airlines flight; the intention had been to destroy two passenger aircraft simultaneously.
Purkiss believed otherwise. There was no mention of any explosive material having been found in Hanahneh’s possession. He thought the Jordanian was probably a decoy, and his so-called suspicious behaviour a ruse intended to divert security attention away from the Turkish Airlines flight.
In any event, he didn’t believe the purpose of the attack had been to
It all posed a problem for Purkiss. The police would be on the lookout for any signs of stealthiness in anybody within the airport terminal. A man without luggage would attract suspicion.
And the visible security presence was one thing. There’d be scores, perhaps hundreds, of plainclothes personnel strewn throughout the terminal as well. Purkiss had identified four of them, three men and a woman, within just five minutes of entering the terminal through the arrival gate.
He’d bought a fresh set of clothes at Fiumicino Airport, choosing chinos and smart trainers and an overcoat and ditching the duffel jacket in one of the bins. The United Airlines flight had been only half full, and he’d had no trouble securing a seat at short notice.
At eight fifty on Wednesday morning, less than two hours after he’d boarded in Rome, Purkiss reached Frankfurt. He did an initial sweep of the terminal with several purposeful strides from one end to the other, giving the impression he was a man on his way to an appointment of some kind. That was when he’d spotted the four undercover security personnel, though they didn’t seem to have taken an interest in him. Afterwards, he settled himself at the counter of a coffee shop, from which he could survey a fair stretch of the concourse, and ordered breakfast.
While he ate, and watched, he caught up with the news through four papers he’d bought from a kiosk, two of them German and two British. There was little difference between them in the known facts they relayed. Flight TA15 was thought to have been brought down by a relatively low-yield explosion within the cabin, which had torn open the fuselage and done enough damage to cause the pilot and co-pilot to lose control. Of the 148 passengers, seventeen had been nationals of Muslim countries. Suspicion was already being cast on one man in particular, Umair Jat, a citizen of Pakistan who had previously been investigated by the authorities in Islamabad for possible links to radical jihadist groups, though nothing had been proven.
Much was made in the news reports of two other facts. One was the telephoned admission by a supposed spokesman for the Islamic Caliphate in Asia that the ICA was responsible for the killings. The German Security Service and the US State Department had separately issued confirmations that the admission was likely to be genuine. The other noteworthy detail was the arrest of a man at the departure gate of a Swissair flight, a few minutes before TA15 took off. The man was a Jordanian, Adnan Hanahneh, who’d been observed to be acting suspiciously as he approached the gate.
Two hours after being taken into custody, the Jordanian had died. The details were sketchy, but officials said he had probably taken his own life by means of a cyanide capsule he’d managed to keep hidden from his captors.
Hanahneh was, the newspapers speculated, probably part of a double act with whomever had carried the bomb aboard the Turkish Airlines flight; the intention had been to destroy two passenger aircraft simultaneously.
Purkiss believed otherwise. There was no mention of any explosive material having been found in Hanahneh’s possession. He thought the Jordanian was probably a decoy, and his so-called suspicious behaviour a ruse intended to divert security attention away from the Turkish Airlines flight.
In any event, he didn’t believe the purpose of the attack had been to
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