The Bombmaker (35 page)

'And you want me to finish it now?'

Green-eyes nodded.

The briefcase full of Semtex slabs was on another table. Andy went over to it and unwrapped the blocks one by one, putting the plastic wrappers to the side. She began to work the blocks together like a pastry chef, squeezing out the air and forming the high explosive into one malleable roll. It was hard work, and her hands were soon aching. She flattened it out into a rough oblong, then picked it up and put it back in the briefcase, pressing it firmly into all the corners. It filled the case to a depth of almost three inches. It was, Andy knew, capable of producing a shock wave so devastating that it would virtually vaporise everything within a hundred feet. Beyond that, shrapnel would kill anything up to five hundred feet away. But the purpose of the Semtex wasn't to produce lethal shrapnel -- it was to act as an initiator to set off the four thousand pounds of fertiliser explosive. If the Semtex was destructive on it own, combined with the home-made explosive it would be a hundred times more devastating.

Once she was satisfied with the Semtex, she carried the case over to the table where the electrical circuit was. She put it down and turned to Green-eyes. 'You're sure you want me to assemble it now?'

'Bit late for second thoughts, Andrea,' said Green-eyes.

'It's not that. But if you want me to put the detonators in the circuit, we should unplug all the electrical equipment. The big stuff, anyway. The ovens and the tumble-driers.'

Green-eyes nodded. She went over and pulled the plugs out of the wall as Andy methodically removed the bulb-holders.

The four silver cylinders lay in a row by Andy's right hand, their white wires neatly coiled together.

'What about the timer?' asked Green-eyes. 'Won't you have to plug it into the mains?'

'What?'

'The clock? The video recorder needs a mains supply.

Doesn't the clock?'

Andy shook her head as she began wiring the detonators into the circuit in the places where the bulb-holders had been. 'No.

The voltage is stepped down to about twelve volts. I'm running it off batteries.'

Green-eyes studied the circuit that Andy was assembling.

'And you're going to use all four detonators?'

'That's what you wanted.' She uncoiled the wires from the last of the detonators and wired it into the circuit.

'But that's how many we need, right?'

Andy nodded. 'One would do the job.'

'But the more the merrier, you said.'

'They weren't my actual words,' said Andy. 'But you want more than one in case there's a failure. And the more you have,

the stronger the original detonation pulse.'

'A bigger bang,' said Green-eyes, with evident satisfaction.

Andy looked up from what she was doing. 'Have you ever seen what a bomb does? The effect it has?'

Green-eyes gave Andy a withering look. 'Of course.'

'So you should know it's not a laughing matter. It's not funny. People get hurt. Legs get blown off. Children die.'

Green-eyes slammed a hand down on the table, rattling all the electrical components. 'I know what a fucking bomb does!'

she shouted. 'And so do you!'

Andy realised she'd pushed the woman too far and she averted her eyes, not wanting to antagonise her any more.

Green-eyes grabbed a handful of Andy's hair and twisted it savagely. 'You're the one who's blown up children, you bitch!'

she yelled.

The Wrestler stood watching them, his hands on his hips.

'I'm sorry,' said Andy, trying to push her away.

'Sorry? Sorry for what? For blowing up children? For killing soldiers? What the fuck are you sorry for?' Green-eyes slapped her across the face. Andy stared back at her, not flinching.

Green-eyes drew back her hand to hit Andy again, but before she could slap her there was a loud knock at the reception door and Green-eyes tensed. She lowered her hand and looked at her wristwatch. 'Go to the office, now,' she hissed. 'Close the door and don't open it until I come and get you.'

Liam Denham was walking towards the office where Martin was being kept when he heard Patsy Ellis calling him. He went back along the corridor and found her sitting behind a desk in one of the offices.

'Your boss thrown you out on your ear, has he?' he joked as he removed his hat and unbuttoned his raincoat, but Patsy didn't return his smile.

'Come in and close the door, will you, Liam,' she said. Her>

voice was as flat and emotionless as her face, which Denham took as a bad sign. He closed the door and sat down on a chrome-and-leather chair facing her. The office was much smaller than Hetherington's down the corridor, with modern furniture and two paintings that appeared to be little more than dribbles of colour on pale blue canvases. The desk Patsy was sitting behind was glass and chrome, and Denham could see her legs through the transparent top. The only thing common to both offices was the computer terminal. Denham raised an eyebrow expectantly and waited for her to speak. 'What the hell did you think you were playing at?' she asked.

Denham raised both eyebrows and gave her a look of innocent bewilderment, but he knew that his goose was well and truly cooked. 'What do you mean?' he asked.

Patsy sneered at him contemptuously. 'You're too old to play the innocent with me, Liam,' she said, looking at him with cold contempt. 'K Division were on the hot line before you'd even hung up. What the hell did you think you were doing?'

'I thought I was helping,' he said.

'You were going behind my back. You were jeopardising an ongoing investigation. You've put hundreds of lives at risk, and if your pal Eamonn Hogan makes waves in Dublin you might well be responsible for the death of a seven-year-old girl.'

Denham reached inside his coat and took out his cigarettes and lighter, but she halted him with a stony look. 'No, not this time, Liam. I don't want you smoking around me. In fact, if it wasn't for your insight into Andrea Hayes, I wouldn't want you in this building.'

Denham put his cigarettes and lighter away. 'In my own defence, I would say that I didn't mention the kidnapping. I just asked him to keep an eye out for McEvoy.'

Patsy's fingers tapped on the keyboard, then she hit the 'enter' key with a flourish. Denham felt his cheeks redden as they listened to the conversation he'd had with Hogan, replayed through the computer's small but effective loudspeakers. Patsy made him listen to the entire exchange before tapping on the keyboard again. 'You even told him you were working for Five,' she said.

'Strictly speaking, Patsy, and I don't want to be pedantic, but if you listen carefully to what I actually said, I never talked about Five or the kidnapping.'

'Hogan said it. You didn't disagree.'

'For goodness' sake, what was I supposed to do? Lie to him?'

'What you were supposed to do was to concentrate on the job in hand, not phone your contacts in Dublin. If I wanted the Garda Siochana to be looking for the Hayes girl, I'd have made an approach through official channels.'

'And the only official action so far seems to have been to warn them off the investigation.'

Patsy narrowed her eyes. 'What are you getting at?'

Denham sighed. He hadn't wanted to pick a fight with Patsy Ellis, but he could feel himself being forced into a corner, and he'd never relished the role of human punchbag. 'I'm starting to feel that in the rush to apprehend the bombers, the little girl is being forgotten. That's all.'

'You're retired, Liam. You're here at my request. You're not here to direct the enquiry and you're certainly not here to criticise my performance.'

'I wasn't being critical, Patsy. That I wasn't. I was trying to help and I'm sorry if you think my attempt was misguided.'

'Misguided isn't the word that springs to mind,' said Patsy. 'I was considering reckless. Irresponsible, maybe.'

'I've apologised once, Patsy. I don't see what more I can do.'

'What's annoying me, Liam, is that you don't seem to appreciate the damage that your friend Hogan might do.'

'He'll be careful.'

'He's got more black marks on his record than I've had ladders in my tights, Liam. He's sailed so close to the wind that he's lucky to have a job, never mind a Chief Inspector's rank. If he was in the Met he'd have been out on his ear years ago.'

Denham wanted to defend Hogan, but he knew that to do so would only antagonise Patsy even more. He sat with his head down, holding his tweed hat with both hands and fingering the fly in the brim. 'You haven't got children, have you, Patsy?'

Patsy looked at him coldly. 'No, Liam, and at forty-three I doubt that I ever will. But I don't see what my lack of maternal instincts has to do with your irresponsible behaviour.'

'Somewhere in Ireland there's a little girl, scared out of her wits, a little girl who doesn't know why she's been taken away from her family, who doesn't know that she's a pawn in a bigger game. And down the corridor there's a father who's going out of his mind with worry. He doesn't know if he's ever going to see his daughter again. Hell, he doesn't even know if she's dead already, lying in a ditch somewhere with a plastic bag over her head or a bullet in her heart. When all this over, however it works out, Martin Hayes is going to want to know what we did to try to save his little girl. And just now, from where I'm sitting,

it looks as if we're not doing a goddamned thing.' He raised his head and looked her squarely in the eyes. She stared back at him.

'I know there are hundreds of lives at stake, here in London.

Hundreds of lives and millions of pounds. I know you have to consider the big picture. But I know what it's like to lose a child,

Patsy. It's not something you're going to want on your conscience.'

Patsy continued to stare at Denham for several seconds.

'We're not going to agree on this, Liam,' she said eventually.

'I'm sorry.' She stood up. 'I'd rather you didn't leave the building again, until this is over.'

'So I'm under house arrest, is that it?'

'No. I just want you here if she does call.' She opened the door for him and he hauled himself out of the uncomfortable chrome-and-leather chair which had clearly been designed to be admired and not used. He massaged the small of his back with the knuckles of his left hand as he left the office.

'I suppose there is one good thing to have come out of your little escapade,' she said. 'We know that the GCHQ monitoring works. Your call was flagged immediately Hogan said “Katie”.'

Denham nodded but didn't say anything. Patsy closed the door behind him as he walked down the corridor, reaching for his packet of cigarettes.

Andy put her ear to the door and screwed up her face as she tried to hear what was going on outside. Her cheek was still smarting from when Green-eyes had slapped her. She hadn't expected her to react so violently. She wondered if it was guilt, if the woman was finally realising the horror of what they were doing.

Bombs in the abstract could be fascinating, exciting even, but at the end of the day they were inhumane weapons of destruction that brought nothing but sadness and grief in their wake.

She heard a man's voice, but through the door it was little more than a faint rumble, and she couldn't even tell if it was the Wrestler or the Runner. The Runner hadn't returned with Green-eyes from the dry run - maybe this was him coming back now.

She looked down at the burgundy briefcase. If she was going to do anything, she had to do it now. The bomb was ready. All that was left to do was set the timer and put it in the middle of the bags of explosive. Green-eyes was more than capable of doing that on her own. Andy had reached the stage where she was dispensable, which meant that they'd either release her or kill her.

She knelt down and pulled the briefcase from under the table. The combination locks were as she'd left them, both set to eight-six-four. She flicked the catches and pulled open the lid.

The mobile phone was there. But so was something else,

something that took her breath away. Five videocassettes, small ones that had been taken from a video camera.

Egan walked over to the pile of black garbage bags. 'All done?'

'All four thousand pounds of it,' said O'Keefe, pulling offhis ski mask and rubbing his face. 'We should have asked for more money.'

'You're being well paid,' said Egan, lifting one of the bags to gauge its weight.

'What's going to happen to Quinn's share, now that he's . . .

retired?'

'Retired?' laughed Egan. He was wearing a black leather jacket over a grey crew-neck pullover and black Levi jeans. He ran his eyes over the bags, counting quickly. When he was satisfied that the full complement was there, he turned to O'Keefe. 'Okay, Don. You and Lydia can split the money I was going to give to Quinn. Happy now?'

O'Keefe grinned and rubbed his gloved hands together.

'Suits me,' he said.

McCracken took off her ski mask and went over to the Semtex-filled briefcase. Egan joined her, and they looked down at the electric circuit that lay on top of the explosive. Egan cast his eyes over the tangle of wires. 'So everything's ready?' he said.

'All she has to do is push the detonators into the Semtex and set the timer. We don't actually need her for that.'

'No. She has to do it all.'

'So that her signature's on it?'

Egan looked across at her, frowning. 'Who told you about signatures?'

McCracken gestured with her chin to the office where she'd sent Andrea. 'She did.'

Egan's frown deepened. 'Not getting too close, are you?'

'Don't be stupid,' snapped McCracken. 'We were talking,

that's all.'

Egan smiled amicably. 'Anyway, you're right. It's her signature that matters. It has to look like an IRA bomb, and even the slightest deviation will tip off the investigators. How's she been?'

'She's doing as she's told. What about her daughter?'

'Her daughter's fine. For the moment.'

O'Keefe came over and looked down at the Semtex. 'What happens to her? Afterwards?'

'The daughter?'

O'Keefe nodded.