The four men who met at london's king's cross railway station must have looked ordinary enough to the thousands of commuters rushing to work on the morning of July 7. Three were British born—a 30-year-old grade-school teacher with a baby daughter and a reputation for devotion to his learning-disabled students; an 18-year-old described by friends as a "gentle giant," dressed that morning like the universal teenager, in denims and a sloppy jacket; a 22-year-old cricket fan who worked in his family's fish-and-chip shop in Leeds. The fourth was a 19-year-old Jamaican who had become a British citizen, married a British woman and had a young son, a man who seemed just an "ordinary Joe Bloggs to me," in the words of a neighbor. All four were carrying military-style backpacks, but even a vigilant passerby might have found that coincidence unremarkable. After several minutes of calm conversation, the men fanned out in different directions, in the full knowledge they were about to meet their deaths.
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