The Careless Word (#8 - The Craig Crime Series) (26 page)

Smith looked puzzled. “Major James said nothing about that.”

“Your forensics guys agree with Des. He met with them this morning.” John brushed past Smith’s surprise and carried on, knowing that James had probably withheld the detail deliberately, to assert his power. He sounded like a complete dickhead.

“OK, it’s neither here nor there except that it shows their determination to completely destroy the shop.” He smiled at Craig. “Or whatever was inside.”

John pressed another key and Fintan Delaney appeared by the front door and the bomb appeared under the bookshelves at the back of the shop. Another key added red crosses, to mark the likely positions of Sharon Greer and Ibrahim Kouri at the time of the blast.

John gestured at the screen. “You can see exactly where everyone was when the bomb exploded, the only reason Delaney survived was because he was by the front door, but the secondary device makes me think he was supposed to die in the blast as well.”

Annette cut in. “He and Kouri both were. That’s why they returned to the shop after planting the bomb.”

John raised a note of caution. “If Kouri definitely was the man who planted the bomb with Delaney the night before. It seems logical, but we still can’t be sure. There could be a third man involved. Remember that we didn’t see the face of the second bomber, only Delaney’s”

Craig cut into the debate. “I think Annette’s right, John. I think there were only two bombers and they were meant to be martyrs for Islam. Whatever they knew about the movement was supposed to die with them. That’s why Delaney was murdered. They couldn’t risk him living to tell their secrets.”

Liam interrupted. “And Jennifer Weston killed him because she was part of the cell.” He updated them on his trip to St Mary’s, ending with “She went to Pakistan last year, that’s already too much coincidence for me. And what are the odds that the feet in the photo don’t belong to her? Same sandals and same black nail varnish.”

Craig frowned in thought. It was possible but they needed to dig deeper.

“OK, Liam, it was a good thought but we need this water-tight to be sure. Find out who made those sandals and how many pairs were sold.” Liam went to object but Craig’s glance said that he’d better not. He sweetened the task with his next words. “Nicky, you’re our fashion guru, help Liam with that please.” Liam’s objection evaporated instantly and Craig carried on.

“OK, so if Jenny Weston was tasked with finishing Delaney off, she was most likely part of the same radical cell. But why trust a woman with the mission? Their status wouldn’t be judged as high. Unless…What was her relationship with Delaney?”

Annette was the first to answer. “She recruited him?”

Craig nodded. “Anyone else?”

Davy chipped in. “She was his handler? He w…was her responsibility?”

“Yes to both of you. I think Weston recruited Delaney and trained him so it was her job to finish him off.”

Davy nodded eagerly. “I was going to tell you. I finally found a connection between Delaney and W…Weston. They met at Queen’s.”

“I thought you said she’d left university before Delaney started.”

“S…She had. But some of her nurse training was at the M.P.E. in Elmwood Avenue, just down from the student’s union. I checked with the nurse tutor and the nurses often went to the union coffee shop for lunch.”

Craig’s eyes widened excitedly then he shook his head. “It’s thin, Davy. That only proves they could have met, not that they did.”

Davy smiled smugly and tapped his left-hand screen, pulling up a double column of names. He scrolled down until he reached the pair he wanted. There, printed so clearly that no-one could argue, were two names side by side; Fintan Delaney and Jennifer Weston. Craig leaned in, excited.

“Where is this from?”

Davy considered dragging out his explanation to impress the crowd but his eagerness wouldn’t let him. “I remembered that W…Weston had studied religion and we know that Delaney was religious. S…So I figured that if she was recruiting for a religious group, w…where better to find possible converts than amongst people already interested in religion and then just look for the floating voters! The table is a list of volunteers at a church near Queen’s in 2012. Delaney had helped out there since s…school and Weston joined when she was a s…student nurse; they paired-up the new and experienced volunteers.”

Craig wanted to shake the young analyst’s hand, but it might have been overkill in the middle of a meeting, so instead he slapped him on the back, making Davy cough. “Excellent work, Davy. OK, so we have Delaney and Weston meeting two years ago, we have Delaney and possibly, probably, Ibrahim Kouri planting the bomb last Thursday morning, a bomb designed to destroy Papyrus and everything in it. And we have Weston returning to tie up the loose ends by killing Delaney.”

John interrupted. “By injecting him with poison.”

Craig waved him on.

“The poison was an unusual one, not normally administered I.V. but even more effective that way. Saxitoxin.”

“Fugu?”

“Very good, Liam, you’re almost right. Fugu is made from blowfish, not clams, and it contains Tetrodotoxin not Saxitoxin, but they’re very similar poisons. Have you tried it?”

Liam made a face. “Have I, hell! If I want fish I’ll go to the local chippie. Why anyone would want to risk death for a meal beats the hell out of me.”

John smiled, envisaging Liam in Barbados searching for the nearest Irish pub.

“Saxitoxin blocks the sodium channels of nerve cells, preventing normal cell function and leading to paralysis. The usual cause of death is respiratory failure, as in Mr Delaney’s case. It’s virtually undetectable once it’s in the body. Our friends in the CIA know all about it; they employed it as a suicide method during the Cold War. They issued agents with a needle dipped in it concealed inside a fake silver dollar.”

A few minutes discussion followed about everyone’s riskiest meals until Craig returned them to the case.

“I think that’s most of what we need to cover on Weston and Delaney, except, Davy, you were looking into Weston’s travel after the event.”

“Yes. There w…was no-one travelling under that name anywhere, but we found a few likely matches and I’m running the images through facial recognition software now.”

A loud cough made everyone turn to see Nicky shaking her head. Craig smiled; opening the door to what he knew would be something good.

“You’re so busy looking at evidence and forensics that you’ve missed the most obvious thing.” She smiled graciously at Liam. “Liam came the closest.” Liam puffed himself up as Nicky gazed at the others’ blank faces. “Think, for goodness sake.” She turned to Craig. “Sir? Surely you’ve seen it?”

Craig hadn’t a clue what she was talking about and he said so. Nicky sighed exaggeratedly.

“Jennifer Weston has gone to Pakistan. Check the flights, Davy. Does one of your images link to a long haul flight from Dublin?”

Davy scrolled down his screen and nodded. “Dublin to Karachi on Sunday.”

“That was her flight then.”

Nicky stared at them all expectantly, to be greeted with total silence. She shook her head like a tolerant mother. “Jennifer Weston and Fintan Delaney weren’t just colleagues, they were lovers. It’s a clear as the nose on my face.”

Craig looked sceptical. “Where did you get that from?”

Liam quipped. “She spends her life reading romantic novels.”

Nicky was indignant. “I do not! I just listen to the bits between the facts. They met two years ago, they both went to Pakistan. Fintan Delaney called a satellite phone there every week.”

“They could have been arranging the job.”

“The phone calls maybe, but you said he had a second e-mail account. It won’t have been for the job - who would risk wrecking a covert operation by communicating by C-mail? Any details of the job would have been discussed in an untraceable way. My bet is there was another side to Delaney’s relationship with Weston and it was personal.” She turned to Davy. “Have you read his C-mails yet?”

Davy shook his head. With everything else happening it had slipped his mind. Craig nodded him to pull them up as Nicky continued.

“The framed photograph attached to the bomb. If Liam’s right it was of Jennifer Weston.”

Annette interrupted. “So Delaney attached it to the bomb because he was doing it for her? He’d given his life for her and it was his way of being close to her when he died.”

Nicky nodded vigorously, seeing that Annette had got it. “And when Delaney didn’t die, she probably volunteered to be the one to kill him, because she loved him and wanted to see him again.”

Liam guffawed loudly, breaking the romantic mood. “God save me from women who love me if that’s how they show it.”

Nicky squinted at him. “Trust me, Liam; most women would want to kill you. Love has nothing to do with it.”

Davy tapped his keyboard and began to read. “Dearest, Jenny. I can’t bear to be apart from you…” He read Weston’s reply and they quickly got the gist.

Craig motioned Davy to stop and Nicky gave a smug grin. She was right; Fintan Delaney had joined a radical group for love! Who knew if he’d ever come to believe in their ideals, but he’d killed for them anyway.

“Well done, Nicky. Liam, forget the great sandal hunt; I think we can take it the photograph was of Jennifer Weston and that she’s gone back to somewhere in Pakistan. The question is where?”

Annette nodded thoughtfully. “I have an idea, sir. Delaney went to Pakistan last summer to do some charity work and the ward sister’s confirmed that Weston went there as well. The odds are that they were together. Surely between travel itineraries and the C-mail address Delaney wrote to we should be able to pinpoint an area of Pakistan at least?”

Craig smiled. “Brilliant. Davy, get onto that please. But detach your system from the police net or the CIA will find out.”

“I’ll do it on my own laptop. I have firewalls on there that no government could crack. Give me till tomorrow morning.”

“Good. OK, we have why Delaney did it and probably who he did it with, now we just have the simple task of finding out why Islamic radicals targeted a small bookshop in Belfast!”

Chapter Nineteen

Banque de Paris. Paris. Thursday 9 a.m. local time

Berger waited outside the stone building on the corner of Rue des Lilas d'Espagne, shifting nervously from foot to foot. He scanned the two streets leading from the junction, watching as suited men and women scurried along them, then disappeared through doors to be swallowed up by stone and glass. He’d never wanted an office job but he almost envied them now.

He checked his watch again, and again a few seconds later, stepping into the shade and gazing at the rooftops overhead. Anyone could shoot him and steal his number for the vault; they might even sever his hand for fingerprints. The manager wouldn’t notice that they weren’t him. He must see a thousand faces each week and Berger didn’t fool himself there was anything memorable about his.

As he stood imagining his horrific death at the hands of a faceless man or group, two men appeared beside him. Berger stepped back so quickly that he almost fell. He hadn’t heard their footsteps or seen them appear; that was how easily he could meet his death. One of the men spoke, shaking Berger from his terror; it was Augustin. He didn’t even like the man but right now he could have kissed him on both cheeks! Claude Augustin repeated his words impatiently.

“Well? Do you want to stand here all day?”

Berger turned questioningly towards the second man, expecting an introduction. He was short, even shorter than him, but his mohair coat and perfectly plumped tie screamed wealth and power. Berger’s questioning look went unanswered as Augustin pushed at the bank’s revolving door and in a moment they were inside the cool building, striding across its marble hall. Five minutes later they stood in the echoing vault as the bank manager reversed obsequiously from the room, leaving them alone. Augustin gestured towards the safe and waited for Berger to open it.

Berger shielded the dial from his audience and began to input the digits, twisting it this way and that. His fingerprints and the numbers were the only things preventing Augustin killing him and stealing what he possessed, and he wasn’t about to give them up. Finally the last lever dropped and he pulled at the steel door handle, revealing the safe’s contents to the two men. He gawped as the wealthy man abandoned his dignified façade and grabbed hungrily at what lay inside.

“Careful! It mustn’t be damaged.”

The man stared at his hands as if they’d committed an assault then he breathed deeply and touched the safe’s precious contents again. He stroked the object like the body of a woman he loved. Augustin felt like a voyeur and turned away, but Berger watched every touch as if the man would suddenly dematerialise his possession and disappear. After five minutes of close examination the man nodded then he uttered his first words since they’d met in the street.

“The figure?”

Not ‘how much?’ or ‘what’s the cost?’ They would both have been too vulgar. Instead he merely asked for Berger’s number. How much would it take for Berger to part with the most valuable thing he possessed, when they all knew he would never own its like again? How much would it take to pay for the life Berger wanted to live, the one that he had never had? Too low and Berger would kick himself forever, especially if he ran out of funds on the Côte d'Azur. Too high and he risked his buyer walking out the door, and with him the chance of a warm old age. Alain Berger smiled, confident for the first time in his struggle of a life that he had the upper hand. He’d done his research and he knew exactly what his prize was worth.

“Nine million euros.”

The vault was silent and Augustin and the man even more silent than that. Berger watched the wall clock that he was certain contained a camera and bit on his tongue, tasting blood. Outwardly he stayed calm; to show doubt could lose him the deal. The rich man’s silent stillness was a good sign. If he’d said yes too quickly the price would have been too low, if too high he would simply have walked away. He had to hold his nerve.

After a full minute the well-dressed man nodded and Berger exhaled, not realising until then that he’d held his breath. It was his turn to ask a question. “When?”

The man turned on his heel, leaving Augustin to answer. “Tomorrow. I will bring the cash here, again at nine. We will not meet again after that.”

Alain Berger was satisfied. He waited for both men to leave then he replaced his fortune inside the safe, securing it for the night. If Augustin discovered the safe’s combination he could try to steal the item for himself. He needed somewhere so safe to hide until the next morning that not even Claude Augustin could reach him there.

***

2 p.m.

Craig spent Thursday fending off calls from the Chief Constable and Stephen James, asking him why they were getting queries from the American Embassy and Ministry of Defence. Craig took the line he’d decided on as soon as the CIA had appeared in John’s office; feigned ignorance, subtext ‘I know nothing’. If the CIA wanted to know why Ibrahim Kouri had been in a bookshop in Belfast intent on blowing it up, then they’d have to wait until the case was solved like everyone else. Craig wondered if they were still parked outside in Pilot Street like they had been that morning. Well, if they wanted to waste their time sitting in a car that was their prerogative.

Davy’s cursory search of the internet had yielded nothing exciting in the book chat-rooms, but his own time on the Dark Web was beginning to bear fruit. Cyber mutterings about two books and a ‘pair of something very rare’ came and went, with recurring references to Paris. Craig toyed with the idea of contacting the Gendarmes and then thought better of it. That was all they needed right now, another enforcement agency to add to the already involved British Army and CIA. How many law officers can you get in a phone-box? Guinness World Records probably already knew.

Besides, all he had at the moment was conjecture, so what could he tell the Gendarmes? “Bonjour. We’ve had an explosion in a bookshop. We think it might be something to do with a special book, so special that someone killed five people to get rid of it. What was the book’s name? Oh, we don’t know that, but we think it’s one of a pair and the second one might be somewhere in Paris. Just thought we’d alert you anyway so you could scour Paris’ thousands of bookshops on a wild book chase.” Nope, it wouldn’t work. But as soon as they got the book’s title he would give them a call.

Craig gazed out his office window, contrasting the bright July sky-line with the murkiness of the Dark Web. The river shone like mercury, only disturbed by the birds swooping through its surface in search of their next meal, and the occasional small eddies caused by the warden’s patrolling boat. He longed to dive in and wash off the mental grime of the past week. He smiled to himself. The waters of the Lagan were many things; cooling, increasingly busy and a conduit to the Irish Sea, but they definitely weren’t for swimming in.

God, he needed a holiday. If John’s wedding hadn’t been about to provide one he would have planned a getaway for Katy and himself. Sun, sleep and wine; the perfect recuperation package.

As Craig returned to the alternately esoteric and criminal chatter on the Dark Web, Jennifer Weston disembarked a flight at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport with everything she needed to complete her task. It wouldn’t be long before she’d finished what had started in Belfast.

***

“Yes! The border with Iran.”

The shouted words made Liam glance up from the file he was reading, just in time to see Davy racing towards Craig’s office. He saw him knock and enter then heard Craig murmur something. They emerged together from the room and Craig glanced quickly at the clock. It was three-thirty, a bit early but they might as well brief now. It was going to be short and sweet. He beckoned everyone over, motioning Davy to start.

“I’ve traced the C-mail’s recipient to Pakistan, a desert region near the Iran border. It also fits the s…satellite phone signal.”

Ken cut in. “Do you mean actually in the desert, Davy, or in a town nearby?”

Davy shook his head. “In the desert itself, although the e-mail provider w…would only guarantee accuracy to within one hundred miles. I took the radius they gave me and crossed it with the phone s…signals and the area of overlap is here.” He loped back to his desk and pointed at his central screen, prompting them all to join him. It was a map showing the Kharan Desert in Pakistan, sandwiched between Iran and Afghanistan; nine hundred miles from the Arabian Sea.

Liam was the first to state the obvious. “Who the hell lives in the desert? The heat must be dire.”

Ken answered him. “Nomadic tribes, camels and…”

He didn’t need to finish the sentence; the answer was obvious. People who didn’t want to be found lived in the middle of the desert. And if Jennifer Weston and Fintan Delaney were anything to go by, some of them weren’t indigenous to Pakistan.

Craig nodded; it made sense. A radical Islamic group had to live off the radar. Was it a terrorist training camp? He shrugged; the answer to that lay with people who had much more powerful equipment than theirs. Damn! That meant sooner or later he’d have to return some calls.

“OK, thanks, Davy. Take it as far as you can.”

Davy gave him a sceptical look then nodded. He’d already taken it to the limits of their equipment and legality and the boss knew it. This was his way of playing for time before the nerds from GCHQ started to interfere.

“Liam, what’s happening with UKUF?”

Liam saw the exchange between Craig and Davy and smiled; the boss didn’t want the CIA poking through their files until they absolutely had to. He tapped the folder in his hand.

“I’ve just been reading Shorty Hamill’s report on them. We were right. With Sharpy and David Greer dead and the boy wonder in Glasgow with his uncle, the ructions have started inside UKUF.”

“Who’s the main contender for leadership?”

“A nasty bit of work called Derek Copeland. Hamill and his lads are keeping a close eye, but I thought I might ask Tommy what he thought.”

Craig nodded. Tommy had a huge reason to be grateful to Liam, and he hated being in debt. “OK, good. Annette, what’s the latest with SNI?”

Annette tidied the pages on her knee and read from the top one. “The director, Mohammed GhamdiAl, was our bomber Kouri, but I’m convinced that SNI didn’t know anything of his plans. Kouri was in deep cover so they hired him and brought him into the country innocently. As far as I can see SNI is in the clear on the bomb. But they’re guilty of working with UKUF to pressure shopkeepers to sell.”

“Then let’s get them on that. Ask the fraud boys to take a good look at their books as well.” Craig paused for a moment, lost in thought. When he restarted he said what was on the tip of Ken Smith’s tongue.

“Ibrahim Kouri was one of the CIA’s most wanted and a founder member of the M.I.F. He was important to his movement. He must have had plenty of raw recruits willing to die, so he wouldn’t have sacrificed his own life unless he’d thought something really warranted it.” Craig turned to Smith. “Ken, you’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting against the radicals. What would warrant Kouri sacrificing himself?”

Smith thought for a moment before answering and Nicky smiled as Carmen gave him a covert glance. It was the most interest she’d shown since he’d arrived.

“Two things. To hit a high value target; either military or propaganda. Or to destroy something that had major significance in the religious war.”

It was what Craig had thought. “OK. The bookshop wasn’t high value, so they were after something that had major religious significance.”

Annette interjected. “It must have been something really offensive to Islam, if not positively anti-Islamic. They wouldn’t destroy something just because it wasn’t an Islamic text, or they’d have to blow up the whole Judeo-Christian world.”

Craig nodded at her logic. “OK, something that was deemed very offensive to Islam. There was nothing about the bookshop itself that fitted that bill, or any of the occupants, so that brings us back to the idea of a book.”

Craig asked Nicky to hand out the pages she’d printed before the briefing.

“This is text from some collector’s chat-rooms on the Dark Web. Does everyone know what that is?” Craig already knew that his team did so he gazed pointedly at Carmen and Ken. Carmen nodded but Smith looked blank. “OK, Carmen, give Ken more detail after the meeting, please, but briefly, the Dark Web is a shadow internet. There’s a lot of illegal activity going on there and as soon as cyber-crime gets one site shut down another one sets up. Anyway, there are some rare book collectors around who it seems would do pretty much anything to get their hands on what they want. There’s big money involved, millions in fact, and the chatter at the moment is about a book or pair of books linked to Paris in some way.”

Liam interrupted. “Was Belfast mentioned?”

Craig nodded. “On one of the conversation threads but it passed pretty quickly. All the others mention Paris and they aren’t speaking in the past tense; the latest chat was ten minutes ago.” Craig turned to Davy. “Davy, if I give you the thread that mentioned Belfast, can you dig into its archives for the past couple of weeks? I want to see if Belfast was mentioned more before the explosion.”

“S…Sure.”

“Good. For now let’s concentrate on Paris.”

“What’re they saying on it, boss?”

“That there’s a bidding war for a book that has something to do with the Crusades.”

Smith gawped at him. “The Crusades from the 11th to 15th Centuries?”

Carmen’s mouth opened before she could stop herself. “Were there any others?” She bit back the word ‘idiot’ and smiled to soften her words’ impact, but Nicky had seen the flash of sarcasm in her eyes. Thankfully Ken hadn’t. Liam shot Carmen a warning look and she glanced away. He thought that she’d managed to be nice for too long.

Ken smiled cheerfully at her. “No, you’re right of course. We’re taught about the Crusades in military history. Their stated goal was the restoration of Christian access to holy places in and near Jerusalem, but some historians see them as part of a defensive war against the expansion of Islam. The Crusaders’ belief in the absolute ‘rightness’ of Christianity meant that they didn’t always behave well.”