The Bombmaker Page 9

  'Some stuff here I want you to check out,' said Green-eyes.

  Andy walked over to the Transit. The green tarpaulin that had covered the bags of fertiliser was lying on the floor. There was no sign of the bags. The Wrestler was over at the table, drinking from a bottle of water. The Runner climbed down from the driver's seat of the van and went to open the rear doors.

  The back of the van was filled with dozens of cans of denatured alcohol, batches of twelve wrapped in clear plastic. Andy didn't recognise the brand name but each can was labelled 'Pure Denatured Alcohol' and carried a series of warnings that the contents were flammable, that the vapour could irritate eyes and that the contents were poisonous if swallowed.

  'It's what we need?' asked Green-eyes.

  'It's fine,' said Andy, checking the labels.

  'The aluminium powder's in the box.'

  Andy clambered over the stack of cans and pulled open the lid of a large cardboard box. Inside were cans of aluminium powder. She pulled out one of the cans and read the label. Pyro grade 400 mesh.

  'We could only get two hundred pounds,' said the Runner. 'We've fixed to pick up another four hundred pounds from a supplier in Essex.'

  Andy put the can back into the cardboard box and climbed out of the van, wiping her hands on her jeans.

  The Wrestler put his bottle of water down and straightened his ski mask as if it were troubling him. 'It's okay?' he called over to Green-eyes.

  Green-eyes waved him over. 'Yeah. Get this delivered and then pick up the electrical stuff.' She turned to Andy. 'Go back to the office, Andrea.'

  Andy did as she was told. Behind her, the Runner and the Wrestler took the goods out of the Transit and began loading them into the back of the two smaller vans. She sat on the floor and waited as the metal shutters were raised and the vans drove out of the factory. The shutters rattled down again and a few minutes later Green-eyes opened the door to the office.

  'I'm going to make coffee. Do you want some?'

  'What I want is to talk to my husband. And my daughter.'

  'Maybe tomorrow.'

  'Why tomorrow?'

  'Who's calling the shots here, Andrea? Me or you?'

  Andy glared at the masked woman. 'I just want to know that she's okay. How could you do this? Don't you have children?'

  'No, I don't. But I do have people that I love, and people that love me, and I know that I'd do anything to make sure that they didn't come to harm.'

  'How would you feel if someone kidnapped somebody you loved? How would you feel if someone said they'd be killed if you didn't do what they wanted?'

  'I'd feel the same as you do,' said the woman. 'I'd feel angry and bitter and fearful. But the difference between us is that I wouldn't do anything to jeopardise the lives of those that depended on me.'

  Andy's brow furrowed. 'What do you mean?'

  The woman reached into the pocket of her overalls and brought out an envelope. She threw it at Andy and it fell on to the floor in front of her. Andy stared at it with wide eyes. It was the letter she'd left at the Strand Palace Hotel. The letter addressed to her husband.

  'That was very, very stupid, Andrea,' said the woman, her voice a low growl. 'What did you think? That we wouldn't be checking on you?'

  Andy closed her eyes and banged the back of her head against the wall.

  'Everything's been planned, down to the last detail. And if you do as you're told, you and your family will be back together in a few days.' She pointed an accusing finger at the envelope on the floor. 'But tricks like that could screw it up for all of us. So don't whine to me about your daughter being in danger. If anyone's putting Katie's life on the line, it's you.' Green-eyes turned on her heels and slammed the door behind her.

  – «»-«»-«»Mick Canning drew back the two bolts and opened the door to the basement. Katie was sitting on the bed, and she looked up at him as he walked down the stairs carrying the video camera.

  'Hello, Katie,' he said.

  'Hi,' she replied.

  'Are you hungry?' he asked.

  Katie shook her head. 'Not really.'

  'It's almost teatime,' he said. 'Do you want fish fingers?'

  Katie nodded. 'Okay,' she said, her voice trembling as if she were close to tears.

  Canning put the video camera on the table. He waved Katie to come over. She sat down on one of the wooden chairs. 'I want to take some pictures of you,' he said. He nodded at the video camera. 'With this.'

  'Why?'

  'So that I can send the tape to your mum and dad. So that they know that you're okay.'

  'Why don't you let me telephone them? I know my number, it's Dublin six seven nine…'

  Canning smiled beneath his ski mask. 'I know what your telephone number is, but it's better if we do it with the video camera.'

  'Why?'

  'Because then they can see you as well as hear you.' He picked it up and pointed it at her. 'Now, I want you to say something like, Hello, this is Katie. I'm fine. They're taking very good care of me. You can wave, too, if you want. But this is really important, Katie. I want you to say that it's Friday, okay? Can you do that?'

  Katie nodded hesitantly.

  'Okay, so when I press this button, the one my finger's on, then the red light here comes on and you start talking. Okay?'

  'Okay,' said Katie.

  'Right. Three, two, one…' He pressed the record button and nodded at her.

  'Hello, Mummy,' she said. 'Hello, Dad. Are you there?'

  Canning made a circling motion with his finger, encouraging her to talk.

  'I'm fine. There's a nice man taking care of me. He's giving me fish fingers and beefburgers and comics to read. But he won't let me come and see you.'

  Canning mouthed the word 'Friday'.

  'Oh yes, I nearly forgot. It's Friday today. Mummy, please come and get me. I want to go home.'

  Canning pressed the button to stop the recording, then reached over and ruffled her hair. 'Good girl,' he said. He took the tape out of the recorder. 'You did that really well.' He took a second cassette out of his pocket and slotted it into the recorder. 'Now, we're going to try it again. Say what you said before, but this time I want you to say that it's Saturday, okay?'

  Katie frowned. 'Why?'

  'Because when your mum and dad get the tape, it might be Saturday.'

  'What day is it today?'

  'That doesn't matter, Katie.'

  Katie lapsed into silence and nibbled on her lower lip.

  'What's the matter?' asked Canning.

  'I don't want to,' she said.

  Canning stared at her for several seconds, then he switched off the video camera. 'Okay, maybe we'll try again later. I'll go and get your fish fingers.'

  'I'm not hungry,' she said. 'Not really.'

  – «»-«»-«»Andy picked up the envelope and opened it. It was the piece of paper that had been slid under the door of her room in the Strand Palace Hotel. Along the bottom she'd scrawled 'Martin, this is where they want me to go. I love you. Don't let anything happen to Katie'. Now he'd never get the message. She ran her hands through her hair. She had to talk to Martin. She had to let him know that she was all right.

  Her eyes were tired and gritty from crying and her throat was painfully dry, but the discomfort was nothing compared with the ache in her heart. Andy had seen news reports of the bomb that Republican terrorists had detonated in Omagh in Northern Ireland in the summer of 1998. Twenty-eight people killed, two hundred injured. The aftermath of the massacre had been captured by a tourist with a video camera and she and Martin had watched horrified as shocked and bleeding survivors had staggered along streets littered with broken glass and twisted metal. Nine of the dead were children. Andy had cried when she'd seen the pictures, cried on Martin's shoulder as he'd held her.

  She screwed up the letter. Four thousand pounds was a massive bomb. Bigger than any that had ever exploded in England or Ireland. The bomb that had done a billion pounds' worth of damage to London's Docklands
in 1996 was a thousand-pound mixture of fertiliser and Semtex. The bomb in Omagh had been smaller, just five hundred pounds of home-made explosives packed into a car. That bomb had devastated the centre of the market town. The damage that a bomb eight times bigger would do defied Andy's imagination. Four thousand pounds. It could kill hundreds of people. It could bring down a skyscraper.

  She hated Green-eyes for the way she was making her choose. The life of her daughter, or the lives of strangers. Andy would kill to protect Katie, of that she had no doubt. And if she was ever put in the position where she had to give up her own life for the life of her daughter, she'd do it willingly. Nothing was more important, no sacrifice to great, to safeguard the life of her only child. But killing and maiming innocent strangers. That was something else. It was a diabolical choice to have to make. A choice no one should ever be faced with.

  – «»-«»-«»Canning put the video camera down in front of McEvoy, who was cleaning their two Makarov 9mm pistols and working his way through a bottle of Bushmills. His.38 Smith amp; Wesson was on the floor next to the coffee table. 'Okay?' he asked.

  Canning put a single videocassette tape on the table and McEvoy scowled. 'Where's the rest?' he snapped.

  'Just did the one,' said Canning. He went over to the fridge and pulled a box of fish fingers and a bag of oven chips out of the icebox.

  'We were told to do seven,' said McEvoy, holding the barrel of one of the pistols to his face and squinting down it. 'One's no fucking good to anybody, is it?'

  'I'll do them later.'

  'You'd better. Egan wants them in London tomorrow.'

  Canning switched on the oven and spread a layer of chips on a metal tray. 'The kid's a bit wary, that's all.'

  'Wary? What do you mean, wary? Give her a slap and tell her to do as she's told. We're the fucking kidnappers, she's the fucking kidnappee, Mick. We tell her what to do, not the other way around, right?'

  Canning put the chips in the oven and closed the door. He took off his ski mask and rubbed his face. The woollen mask always made his skin itch. 'She's a seven-year-old kid, George. She's scared shitless. She needs careful handling.'

  McEvoy put the gun down and took another swig from the bottle of Bushmills. 'I'll give her careful handling,' he said.

  'It'll be okay. I'll take care of it.'

  McEvoy scowled at him. 'You'd better. Or you can explain to Egan why you're letting a kid run rings around you.'

  – «»-«»-«»Mark Quinn lit a cigarette and offered the pack to O'Keefe. O'Keefe took one and grunted his thanks. They walked out of the lift towards where they'd parked the two vans.

  Quinn leaned against the van he'd been driving and pulled a small notebook from his jacket pocket. 'Sawdust, diesel oil and soap. Containers and black bags.'

  'You've got the sawdust sorted, have you?' asked O'Keefe.

  'Yeah. And I'll pick up the diesel from a garage on the way. Can you get the rest of the stuff?'

  'Sure.' O'Keefe climbed into his van and wound down the window. 'You okay for cash?'

  Quinn opened his wallet and flicked through a wad of fifty-pound notes. He nodded at O'Keefe.

  'Right, see you back at the factory.' O'Keefe drove off. Quinn studied the list in his notebook. Most of the ingredients were innocuous enough and wouldn't arouse the interest of the police officers who manned the checkpoints on the roads that led into the financial district. The ones that might cause suspicion, such as the aluminium powder, the alcohol and the diesel oil, could be smuggled through in the back of the courier vans. The vans bore the registration numbers of vehicles used by a genuine courier company that did a lot of business in the City.

  Egan had planned everything down to the last detail. The office had been leased months before it was needed, and the vehicles had all been in place before Quinn had arrived in London. Other than McCracken and O'Keefe, Quinn didn't know who was involved in the operation, but they were obviously all professionals. He took a long pull on his cigarette and inhaled deeply. He wondered what they had to gain from building a bomb in the City of London. When he'd first agreed to the job, Quinn had asked Egan for an explanation, but Egan had told him that the reasons weren't important, that he wasn't being paid to ask questions.

  Quinn took a final drag on his cigarette and dropped it on to the ground. He stamped on it, then got into the van, switched on the ignition and drove slowly out of the carpark. He turned on the radio and pushed the tuning buttons until he found a station playing heavy metal. He nodded his head back and forth in time with the beat as he drove through the City, choosing a road out that he hadn't used for a couple of days, just to be on the safe side. He was waved through the checkpoint by a bored uniformed policeman who didn't even give him a second look.

  – «»-«»-«»Canning knocked on the basement door and slipped back the bolts. Katie was lying on her camp bed, curled up around her Garfield toy.

  'I feel sick,' she said.

  'You're just upset,' he said. 'You're worried, that's all. It's going to be okay. Just a few more days.'

  'No, I feel really sick. Hot.'

  Canning put his hand on her forehead. She was indeed hot and her skin was clammy with sweat.

  'Sit up. Let me have a look at you.'

  Katie did as he asked and looked at him with sad eyes as he felt her neck.

  'Open your mouth.'

  She opened her mouth wide and closed her eyes. He told her to turn her head so that the light shone into her mouth. The sides of her throat were bright red, but there were no white patches which would have indicated serious infection.

  Katie opened her eyes. 'Are you going to take me to the hospital?' she said.

  Canning smiled. 'You've just got a bit of flu, that's all. You've had flu before, haven't you?'

  Katie nodded.

  'Okay. I'll go and get you some medicine. But don't worry, you're going to be all right.' Katie saw the video camera that Canning had put on the bed and began shaking her head.

  'You've got to do it for me, Katie.'

  'I don't want to.'

  'I'm not asking you to do anything dangerous. It's not going to hurt you.'

  'But it's not Saturday. I'll be telling a lie.'

  'But it might be Saturday when they get the message. If you say it's Friday and they get the message on Saturday, they might be worried. You can understand that, can't you?'

  Katie nodded. 'I guess.'

  'I mean, suppose we put the tape in the post. It might take two days before your mum gets it. You don't want your mum to worry, do you?'

  Katie rubbed her nose with the palm of her hand. 'No.'

  'So let's record a message that'll make her happy, then I'll go and get your medicine. Okay?'

  'Okay. I guess.'

  Canning put the camera up to his face, pressed the 'record' button and nodded.

  'Mummy. Dad. This is Katie. Your daughter.' She hesitated.

  Canning mouthed the words 'I'm fine' and nodded encouragingly.

  'I'm fine,' said Katie. 'But I've got flu, I think. My head hurts and my throat's sore. The nice man is going to give me some medicine to make it better so I should be okay soon.'

  Canning mouthed 'Saturday'.

  'He said to say it's Saturday and that I'm okay. Mummy, I want to come home…'

  She started crying and Canning switched off the video camera. He gave her a hug but her little body was racked with sobs.

  'I want to go home,' she said.

  'I know you do,' said Canning.

  She curled up on the bed with her back to him and he went upstairs and into the kitchen. McEvoy was watching the news on a portable television set.

  'How's the little princess?' he snarled.

  'She's got the flu. I'll go and get her some Night Nurse or something.'

  'Did she do the tape?'

  'Yeah. Saturday.'

  'Egan wants a week's worth. He's not going to be happy with two days.'

  'The kid's sick,' said Canning.

  'She'
s going to be a hell of a lot sicker if this thing doesn't pan out,' said McEvoy. 'Sick as in dead.'

  – «»-«»-«»Lydia McCracken was sitting in front of her computer when she heard the van pull up outside. On the screen was a closed-circuit television image of the reception area of the office on the ninth floor of Cathay Tower. She pressed one of the function keys and a different view appeared. The sacks of fertiliser. There were six hidden cameras in the office – three in smoke detectors, two hidden behind mirrors, and one in an air-conditioning unit. She checked all six viewpoints, satisfying herself that the office was secure. She switched off the computer as the outside door opened. It was Quinn.

  'Everything okay?' she asked.

  'Sure. I've got the diesel and the sawdust. Don's picking up the rest of the stuff. You want me to get the woman out? Get her to check it?'

  'No need. Diesel and sawdust's straightforward enough.'

  She looked at her watch. It was after seven, so there wasn't enough time to get the electrical equipment. It would have to wait until tomorrow. 'Leave the stuff in the vans. Best we use them rather than the Transit.'

  'You hungry?' asked Quinn. 'I'm starving. I'll go out and get a takeaway, yeah?'

  'Might as well,' said McCracken. 'But nothing close by, okay? Drive into Milton Keynes. And don't use the vans, take the Volvo or the VW.' She nodded over at the offices. And ask her what she wants. She hasn't eaten since breakfast.'

  Quinn pulled his ski mask on and tucked it into his shirt collar. He went over to the office where they were keeping the woman. Andy was sitting with her back against the wall, her suitcase by her side.

  'Room service,' he said.

  Andy looked up at him, confused.

  'I'm going out for food. Do you want something?'

  She put a hand on her stomach and nodded her head. 'Yes. Please.'

  'Any requests? Indian? Chinese? Burger King? I'm driving into town.'

  'Anything.'

  'You'll have to give me a clue,' said Quinn, closing the office door behind him. He tucked his thumbs into the pockets of his trousers and stood with his legs apart, his groin thrust slightly forward. 'I don't know what you like.'

  'A sandwich. Anything.'

  Quinn pulled a face. 'I'm not sure if I can get sandwiches. Fast food, yeah?'