by Damien Lewis
Smithy snorted. ‘Typical bloody Yank … The world’s biggest chopper is the Mi-26 HALO, and she’s made by the Mil company, in Russia. So she’s essentially a Soviet aircraft. She can carry twenty tons, no problem.’
‘Tell me more,’ said Kilbride.
‘Right: the Mi-26 HALO’s loaded from the rear, up a ramp, just like a Hercules. You can drive a truck right into her – that’s what she’s designed for. She’s forty metres long, and with the tail ramp lowered she’d take the three RIBs all right … She’s got no armaments as standard, but you can always bolt a couple of chain guns onto the side doors. What more d’you need to know?’
‘How do we get hold of one?’ Kilbride asked.
‘Easy. There’s several firms that lease them out of Russia. They’ll even fly one out in stripped-down form on a bloody great big Antonov AN24, and rebuild her on delivery. You pay half the hire costs up front and they can have it to you within forty-eight hours.’
‘Just out of interest, mate, how d’you know all this?’
‘I worked as security in the oil industry, out in Nigeria. They used the Mi-26 all the time. She’s a big old bird but she flies bloody beautifully – that’s if you have a crew who know how to handle her.’
‘Right – I want one leased for the duration of this mission,’ said Kilbride. ‘We need it boxed up and delivered to the British military base, Cyprus. I want it sat there for several days looking big and ugly and very capable of lifting seventeen and a half tons of gold. Find out the cost, and I’ll get it cleared with The Project. Last but not least, d’you know a good crew we can use?’
Smithy rubbed his hands together excitedly. ‘I know just the man. He’s ex-New Zealand Air Force, special-forces squadron. He’s got more hours on Russian choppers than anyone I know. Plus he’s half Maori and hung like one, with the balls to boot. I take it he’ll be needing them?’
Kilbride nodded. ‘Get the HALO, get the crew, and I’ll explain what I have in mind. Right, anyone got any plans for tonight?’
Berger and Boerke shook their heads.
‘I might be hitting the town,’ Smithy announced, a little self-consciously. ‘There’s something I’ve got to get sorted …’
Kilbride eyed the burly sergeant. ‘There is? Like what?’
‘It’s Janey,’ Smithy muttered. ‘I ain’t seen nor heard nothin’ of her ever since I stood her up, Wednesday night. That’s three days back … She won’t take my calls. I know where she’ll be tonight, though. One of her friends told me. I’m going down there to find—’
‘Not alone you’re not,’ Kilbride interjected. ‘I’m sending Nixon with you. He’ll be happy to look after you, just as long as you buy him all the beer he can drink.’
‘I don’t need looking after. I just need to see her and sort this out.’
‘All loved-up and full of heartache – of course you need looking after. Nixon’s going with you, and that’s that …’
An hour later and Smithy and Nixon were loitering at the bottom of a flight of stone steps that led up to the Terrace restaurant. The Terrace was one of Dares-Salaam’s more exclusive dining venues, with a panoramic view over the city’s Mzizima Bay. Nixon had already carried out a covert recce of the dining area and confirmed that Janey was up there, having dinner with a seriously overweight Indian businessman. Smithy could hear the gentle notes of piped music drifting down from the dining area and could just imagine a fat, sweaty Indian with his greasy fingers grasping Janey’s own slender hand.
‘What now, Nixon?’ he hissed. ‘Can’t stand here like a couple of spare pricks all night long.’
‘Why not go to the Q-Bar?’ Nixon replied, with a broad grin. ‘Bound to be plenty of other girls—’
‘I don’t want other girls,’ Smithy cut in. ‘I want bloody Janey. And that greasy Indian fucker better watch it, or I’ll skewer him on a spit and roast him over a fire …’
Nixon rolled his eyes. ‘Hold on, Mr Smithy, let me think for a second … I think I recognise that Indian man. Mr Rajit Tengupta – he runs a chain of car importers. They bring in cheap vehicles from Dubai. More importantly, he is married.’ Nixon winked at Smithy and squared his shoulders. ‘Leave this to me … You have a pen and paper? Write Janey a message. Tell her you’re waiting for her here …’
Nixon folded Smithy’s note in his pocket, straightened his shirt and strode up the stone steps. He had a quiet word with the head waiter, and was ushered over to Mr Tengupta’s table. Making his apologies, Nixon asked for a quiet word. With bad grace Mr Tengupta agreed. He levered his considerable bulk out of the chair and stepped to one side. Nixon leaned over the balcony with his back to the dining area. Down below him he could see Smithy stiffen as he caught sight of the pair of them.
‘Quickly now, I am in the middle of my eating,’ Mr Tengupta panted. ‘What is all this disturbing me for?’
Nixon lowered his voice. ‘Trust me, I am your Good Samaritan, Mr Tengupta. I am trying to do you a service … Do I have your word that everything we discuss will be kept confidential?’
Mr Tengupta wiped a handkerchief across his brow. ‘Of course, of course.’
‘I am a private detective,’ Nixon announced. ‘Your wife, Mrs Tengupta, hired me to keep watch on you. She suspects … indiscreet behaviour on your part. Now I, like you, am a red-blooded male, and the attraction of a young lady never fades, does it, Mr Tengupta?’
‘Are you trying the blackmailing?’ Mr Tengupta gasped. ‘Because if you jolly well are … An innocent meal with a young woman …’
‘If you will just listen, Mr Tengupta. Your wife is on her way right now, to this very restaurant. I had to report that you were here. At the same time I wish you no harm because no man likes to be caught by his wife …’
‘My God, my wife, here …’ Mr Tengupta gasped. ‘She is the most imposing woman … Most imposing … She will cause such commotions. What am I to do? How can I stop her?’
‘You can’t stop her, Mr Tengupta. As you say – a most imposing woman … Your only option is to leave, right now – there’s no time to lose. You give me the money to cover the bill. I’ll explain everything to your … dining companion. Get out, Mr Tengupta, get out while you still can …’
‘Thank you, my friend, thank you.’ Mr Tengupta handed Nixon a bundle of money. ‘Here, this should cover it. And here is my card. Call me in the week. I should like to be hearing more about my wife’s interest in my privates.’
Without a backward glance Mr Tengupta turned and waddled from the restaurant. As the panicked and overweight Indian reached the bottom of the steps, Smithy stuck out a foot and tripped him.
‘Sorry, mate, I didn’t see you,’ he quipped as he helped the struggling Indian to his feet. ‘You’re not hurt or anything, are you …?’
Nixon strolled across to the dining table. Janey looked at him enquiringly. ‘Your dining companion was called away on urgent family business,’ Nixon announced quietly. ‘He left me the money to settle the bill. In the meantime, read this.’ He passed her Smithy’s note.
‘I know you, don’t I?’ Janey said, as she took the folded paper. ‘You’re Kilbride’s man.’ She glanced at the note. ‘Is this from …?’
‘Just read it,’ Nixon replied. ‘And let me tell you – you don’t know a good man when you see one. Now, I am going settle the bill.’
Janey unfolded the piece of paper in her lap. I’M SORRY, she read. I didn’t mean to stand u up. I meant every word I said on the beech. All of it. I’m waiting at the botom of the steps for u. Smippy xxx
A half-hour later Smithy and Janey were walking across the white sands of Coco Beach, itself a short taxi ride from the Terrace restaurant.
‘You ruined my evening,’ said Janey accusingly. ‘You told Rajit a pack of lies. How dare you? You’re incredible …’
‘Rajit? You mean lard arse?’ Smithy countered. ‘What sort of evening were you going to have with … Rajit, anyway? I mean, d’you actually …’
Janey rounded
on him, her eyes blazing. ‘Go on. Say it. Do I actually sleep with him? Not very often, no. He’s too old and too fat and he usually eats too much. And he gets bad indigestion. But sometimes …’
‘The bloke’s a bloody human hot-air balloon …’
‘You think it matters!? He helps pay my university fees. He looks after me. That’s more than I can say for—’
‘For me? What did I bloody do? All I did was forget that we were meeting … One evening! I was busy, something came up with the lads. It happens. But I’ve been phoning you every hour for three days since. Don’t that say something?’
Janey shrugged. ‘I stopped believing in you … I’ve heard it all before, Smippy. Promises, promises, people promising the world. Each time I believe it, and when it all proves to be lies another little part of me dies. But I believed you. I believed everything you said. And it hurt too much to think you’d lied …’
Tears welled up in Janey’s eyes. ‘I just want a home, a family and an education. And a good man. Is that too much to ask? You stood me up. I was heartbroken. I called Rajit …’
Smithy drew her to him, and she buried her face in his shoulder. ‘Nah, it’s not so bad …’ He stroked her hair, breathing in the warm, spicy smell of her. ‘And it don’t matter. Not now. Not now I’ve got you here, in my arms … All thanks to Nixon. He’s an operator, ain’t he? Old Rajit’s terrified of his wife, mind. You see the way he left the restaurant? White as a sheet and moving pretty fast for a fat one. Or at least he was until he tripped over my ankle …’
Janey laughed. Then sobbed some more. Then laughed again. ‘I like a man who makes me laugh …’
‘And cry? You like a man who makes you sob your bloody heart out, too?’
Janey shook her head, and wiped her eyes. ‘No.’
‘Right then, let’s start over as we mean to carry on. I’ll make you laugh till you’re fit to drop, as long as you stop dating fat blokes. I’ll give you that home you want. I dunno how you’ll manage seven kids and a university career all at the same time, mind. Something’ll have to give …’
The two strolled on across the sands of Coco Beach as Smithy mapped out a golden future. Nixon followed at a discreet distance. He glanced at his watch. If Smithy would only get a move on they could all catch a last few beers at the Q-Bar.
Moynihan pulled a stub of pencil from behind his ear and checked his sums one last time. The Irishman knew he would get no second chance with building this bomb: he had to get it exactly right first time. It was a trade-off between maximum explosive force and the space that that amount of explosives occupied. What Moynihan hadn’t quite appreciated was the density of the gold, the incredibly small volume of 17.5 tons of the stuff.
RDX explosive has a density of 1.8 grammes per cubic centimetre, so 2,000 kilogrammes would have a volume of 1.1 cubic metres. Incredibly, 17.5 tons of gold – some 18,000 kilogrammes – would take up a smaller volume, some 0.95 cubic metres. So when making up the explosive charge he’d have to be careful to ensure that it could be hidden by the fake gold bars. If any of the RDX was visible, even a cursory inspection by the terrorists would give the game away.
Moynihan pulled his duvet jacket closer and glanced across at the shipping container. The deserted warehouse that Nick Coles had found was draughty, and he’d had no idea that China could be so cold. If he did use 2,000kg of RDX he’d need to cover five faces of a 1.1-metre cube with the tungsten bars. The sixth face would be formed by the steel floor of the shipping container. So the thickness of the metal ‘jacket’ would be twenty centimetres, or two tungsten bars. The overall size of the ‘gold’ pile would then be twice what it should be, but he very much doubted if the terrorists would notice. It would still appear an impossibly small cargo, for 17.5 tons of material.
Perhaps he’d go for a compromise, Moynihan reflected. He recalculated the size of the charge required to turn the 17.5 tons of tungsten into one giant shrapnel bomb. With an explosive velocity of 8,750 metres per second, 1,000 kilogrammes of RDX was about the minimum he could get away with.
RDX was hardly the most modern of explosives, Moynihan reflected, but it was still one of the best around. No one really knew where the name RDX had come from, but Research Department (Composition) X was most likely. RDX was developed during the Second World War, when experimental British explosives were each given a Research Department Number, for example RD11. But the story Moynihan had heard was that the Research Department developing RDX had blown itself to pieces, and so it became known as Research Department X – RDX. Hopefully, the explosive charge that he was now building would have a similar effect on the Black Assassins.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE WEEK HAD passed in a blur of phone calls and planning as the day of the dhow’s departure approached. Kilbride woke early on the Friday morning but decided to have a bit of a lie-in. He snuggled up to Marie-Claire, her back to his stomach and his breath in her thick dark hair. This was his wife’s favourite position: wrapped in his strong arms she felt secure and contented, as if nothing could ever come between them or cause them harm.
There was a sharp knock on the front door, repeated a little louder when no one answered. Kilbride cursed, went to get up and then heard Nixon dealing with it.
He caught a few fragments of a conversation: ‘FedEx … Parcel for Mr Kilbride … Needs signing for …’
He gave up trying to sleep and went to check. Nixon handed over a brown parcel wrapped in standard FedEx plastic packaging.
‘Feel the weight of it, Mr Kilbride. You would never believe something that size could weigh so much.’
Kilbride looked Nixon in the eye and grinned. ‘I hear you sorted out Smithy’s little problem last night …’
‘Yah! I hear reports that Mr Rajit Tengupta is being unusually attentive to his wife, of late …’
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ Marie-Claire remarked as she wandered in from the bedroom. She had a gown wrapped around her and was stifling a yawn. ‘We all like a bit of attention … What’s in the parcel?’
Kilbride knew when he had been caught, so there was no point in not showing her. He took the parcel over to the kitchen table, ripped off the FedEx packaging and tore open the tape. He unhooked the cardboard flaps, scrabbled about in the packaging and pulled out a slim metal bar. It was twenty-six centimetres long by eight wide, and as he lifted it out of the packaging Kilbride felt an overwhelming sense of awe …
He ran his fingers across the cold surface, tracing the form of the winged staff stamped into the metal, the two cobras entwined around it. Across one end of the bar was the serial number COBRA 405, plus the words ‘FINENESS 9968’. It was a perfect copy.
‘Unbelievable …’ Kilbride muttered to himself. He held the bar up to the light and it shone with the unmistakable sheen of gold. ‘Unbelievable …’
He searched through the box, and found the shipping invoice. ‘ITEM: 400-oz. Sintered 99.9% Tungsten Bar. Lead and 24 Carat Gold-plated.’
The bar had been couriered to him from China, just so that he could check its authenticity. No doubt about it, it would take a real expert’s expert to tell this from the real thing. He felt Marie-Claire’s presence at his shoulder. ‘Here,’ he announced, as he handed her the bar without warning.
‘Ouch!’ Marie-Claire remarked in amazement, as the bar went falling through her fingers. Kilbride caught it just before it hit the floor.
‘What is it? Did I damage it? I didn’t damage it …’ Marie-Claire asked, anxiously. ‘It is so heavy …’
‘It’s fine,’ Kilbride replied with a chuckle. The courier must have woken their oldest son, who came wandering into the kitchen. Kilbride placed the bar on a low wooden bench. ‘Let’s try David on it. David, come here. What’s this, eh?’
His three-year-old boy went to grab the bar, but it slipped through his grasp. He laughed and glanced at his father, clearly appreciating the game. He went to grab it again, this time knowing to hold it more tightly. Slowly, he raised one end of it with b
oth hands.
‘He did it! He did it!’ Kilbride cried out.
Marie-Claire gave a round of applause. ‘So what is it?’ she asked. ‘It’s somehow beautiful …’ Kilbride could detect a hint of worry in her voice, and he had a good idea what was coming.
‘It’s a bar of tungsten. Weighs almost exactly the same as gold. And it’s plated in twenty-four-carat gold, hence the colour. Amazing, isn’t it …?’
‘You’re going, aren’t you?’ Marie-Claire demanded as she gazed into his eyes. ‘You’re going back to the Lebanon …’
‘Lover, before we married I told you that there would be times when I disappeared on work,’ Kilbride replied evenly. ‘I said there might be times when I wouldn’t tell you what I was doing … that it’d be safer for you not to know. This is one of them.’
Marie-Claire sighed. ‘I didn’t sign a contract.’
‘But you knew that’s how it was going to be.’
‘Tell me something. We’re here in this beautiful home on this beautiful beach with this beautiful family.’ She took his hand and placed it on her stomach. They’d just recently found out that she was pregnant again, and this time Kilbride was hoping for a girl. ‘A family that’s growing … We don’t have money problems. So try to help me understand; why are you going?’
Kilbride glanced down at their eldest son. He knew that if he was ever parted from his children he would die inside. His son gazed back at him, his normally smiling eyes now etched with worry. David was old enough to understand that his dad was going away somewhere, and that his mum didn’t want him to go.
‘Not now,’ Kilbride responded. ‘I’ll tell you later – this evening, okay?’
‘No, it’s not okay,’ Marie-Claire replied, softly. ‘There’ll always be a “later” and one day you’ll just be gone. I’ve already had the house turned into a war zone … It’s destroying our life, our happiness. I need to know. I’ll deal with the kids, and then you’re going to tell me, all right?’
