No 12934, Wednesday 13 May 2020, Vulcan

Day 50 of 54 Stay safe at home

Solution to 22A has been deliberately left unsolved and is to be answered only by a non-regular/novice commenter, with proper annotation. Those who have answered earlier in the week, please give others a chance.

ACROSS
1   Ideal charity place possibly (12) ARCHETYPICAL*
10 A team on leave (7) ABANDON {A}{BAND}{ON}
11 Snake through in a way toward the centre of the ship (7) INBOARD {IN}{BOA}{RD}
12 Entertainer, a child keeping pet (6) TOMCAT {TO{MC}{A}T}

13 Continue to break support column (8) PILASTER {PI{LAST}ER}

15 Disgusting, evil and super offensive (9) REPULSIVE*

16 Combined force employed (5) FUSED {F}{USED}
17 Officer in charge gets stomachache (5) COLIC {COL}{IC}
19 Herb, without strength, exhausted (9) SPEARMINT {SPE{ARM}{I}NT} Anno for I not clear

22 A grand union for one with insight (8) A?T?T?L? (Addendum - ASTUTELY {A}{STAT(-a+u)UTELY)  - See comments)
24 Very much at home having a meal (6) FARINA {FAR}{IN}{A}

26 Time’s over — quickly starting to leave city (7) TORONTO {T}{O}{pRONTO}

27 Good man with heart regularly providing for mother (7) MAHATMA {MA{HeArT}MA}
28 A certain Lima could be a part of this (5,7) LATIN AMERICA* Semi&lit

DOWN
2   Plan is to travel — apparently around Germany (4,3) ROAD MAP {ROA{D}M}{AP} AP/Apparently?
3   Chair duly designed to be operated by liquid (9) HYDRAULIC*
4   Container smelled awful without lid (4) TANK sTANK
5   Adaptation of Virgil — deep and rich (10) PRIVILEGED*
6   Firm support for emergency committee in the UK (5) COBRA {CO}{BRA}
7   A large stone used in sheds (4-3) LEAN-TOS {A+L+STONE}*
8   Duller substance (6) MATTER [DD]
9   Party a communist supported and admired (6) ADORED {ADO}{RED}
14 Hollywood won’t listen, sadly (10) TINSELTOWN*
16 Minister holding Orissa government’s first meet (9) FORGATHER {F{OR}{Go...t}ATHER}
17 Simple course covering the origin of time (6) CHASTE {CHAS{Time}E}
18 Side next to one’s left (7) LATERAL {LATER}{A}{L}
20 Stupid old jerk following one woman (7) IDIOTIC {1}{DI}{O}{TIC}
21 Name describing each box — basically it contains leaves (3,3) TEA BAG {T{EA}{Box}AG}
23 Rule is to catch up daily (5) TENET {NET<=}{ET}
25 Religious title held by him — a Muslim (4) IMAM [T]

Reference List
Way = RD, Entertainer = MC(Emcee), Force = F, Union = U, Time = T, Over = O, Germany = D(Deutsch), Support = BRA, Large = L, Left = L, Old = O, Each = EA, Daily = ET(Economic Times)

Dr RKE's TalePiece

The radical IMAM from TORONTO had sneaked in to the UK, INBOARD a cargo vessel from LATIN AMERICA so as to hide his trail. The M16 had a tip-off about his plan to bomb the London Bridge. A meeting of the top men from the defence and home departments FORGATHERED at the COBRA (Cabinet Office Briefing ROoms) to discuss the MATTER. This building at Vauxhall was looking like an ARCHETYPICAL Victorian construction, with the centuries old PILASTER falling off in some parts, but inside was a state-of-the-art intelligence facility.  Nathaniel Rowbotham (NR) the Defence Secretary, sat at the head of the table. He was prone to get a COLIC and so his personal assistant had set a cup of steaming hot water with a SPEARMINT TEABAG dipped in it. Sipping from the cup, he reviewed the ROADMAP of the action plan to foil the bombing. 

The M16 had [This word will be added later] predicted that the terrorist would reach by tube and so they suggested physically searching everone alighting at the London Bridge underground station. NR dismissed the idea as IDIOTIC, since that might alert the bomber and lead him to ABANDON the plot. The think TANK came up with the idea of an advanced spy camera FUSED to a facial recognition system that could pick the suspect in seconds by matching with file photos. The problem was they only had a grainy photo of the Imam, in which he looked more like a MAHATMA than a suicide bomber, but the PRIVILEGED team of Electronic Surveillance said that it was not an insurmountable problem. Plainclothesmen armed with TOMCATS and invisible earphones for radio communication were stationed all the way from the exit of the tube station to the bridge. 

On the eventful evening, the spy camera had identified 2 suspects, emerging from the station. A brave tommie lunged at one of them in TINSELTOWN fashion, forgetting the basic TENET that physical contact with a bomber could trigger an explosion. What do they say, fortune favours the brave, this bomb was of the remote control type and could only be set off by the other suspect. A swarm of policemen were in the scene immediately and seized the trigger and the two men. They were struck by the similarity of the two men, the reason why the facial recognition system had picked them both, in spite of only one of them being bearded. The shaven man turned out to be the Imam's identical twin, residing in London and the duo had got together for committing their REPULSIVE terror attack! So, the well ADORED London monument was saved by a combination of technology and heroism.