The Bombmaker

by Stephen Leather

  The woman nodded. 'Innovative,' she said.

  'We had to be,' said Andy.

  'How many?'

  Andy thought for a few seconds. 'Two should do it.'

  'Anything else?'

  'That's all for the explosives. But the skill is in the preparation. You can't just throw it together.'

  'And once we've made it, it's not unstable?'

  'You could smash a train into it and it wouldn't go off. In fact, it's only good for a week or so. Maybe two weeks, but after that the fertiliser will have absorbed water again and no matter what you do to it, it won't go off. So you'll need lots of Tupperware containers, the bigger the better. And lots of black plastic rubbish bags. The more you wrap the stuff, the longer it'll take the water to penetrate. And you'll need bags to pack the finished product in. Hundreds of black bags.'

  The woman made another note on her pad. Then she looked up. 'Timer?'

  'Depends on when you want it to go off. Minutes, hours, days or weeks.'

  'Hours.'

  'Any small clock will do.'

  'What do you prefer?'

  'A battery-operated digital model.'

  'Any particular brand?'

  Andy shrugged. 'Whatever. Can I ask you something?'

  'No. What do you pack it in? Oil drums?'

  Andy shook her head. 'No. Like I said, we'll use black bags. You have to pack it around the initiator. If it's in barrels the initial explosion might just knock the rest of the barrels over.'

  'Okay. Black bags it is. What do you need wiring-wise?'

  'Bell wire. Several different colours would help. Soldering iron. Solder. Batteries – 1.5 volts. Torch bulbs and bulb-holders, for circuit testing. Wire. As many different colours as you can get. Look, what are you going to use this for?'

  'That's not your concern.'

  'Is it against people, or property? I have a right to know.'

  The woman put her pen down and looked at Andy, her eyes narrowing under the ski mask. 'We have your daughter, and unless you do exactly as we say, she'll die. I mean that, Andrea. I mean that as sure as I'm sitting here opposite you. The men who are looking after her are taking good care of her, but they're just as capable of putting a bullet in her pretty little head or cutting her throat. This isn't a game, it isn't a joke. You have no rights. You do as you're told or Katie's dead. Do you understand me?'

  Andy stared at the woman. It was as if she were the only static thing in the vicinity – everything else was whirling and spinning around her. She tried to speak, but before any words came she felt her stomach heave and her mouth filled with vomit. She twisted around from the table and threw up with loud, gagging gasps. The Wrestler jumped to the side, away from the foul-smelling yellow flow, but it splattered over his legs.

  'You stupid cow!' he yelled.

  Andy fell to her knees and bent low, her head only inches from the ground as heaving spasms racked her body. Even when her stomach was empty she continued to heave and cough. A glass of water appeared before her and she took it gratefully. She swilled the water around her mouth and then spat it out before drinking deeply. She sat back on her heels and drained the glass. The woman in the ski mask was standing in front of her, her hands on her hips. Andy gave the glass back to her.

  She looked around as she squatted on the dusty concrete floor. There were no windows, though there were barred skylights high overhead. Thick metal girders ran below the roof, and suspended from them were winches and lifting equipment. There were thick metal bolts in the floor, as if massive pieces of machinery had once been bolted into place. The place had obviously been used for some form of manufacturing in the past.

  Up against one wall was a metal bench, and on it a computer. It looked like an expensive system with a large VDU and a tower unit containing the disk drives. A wire led from the computer to a phone socket. A modem, Andy realised. It had a modem. The Wrestler was using a tissue to wipe his trousers and continuing to curse her under his breath. The Runner took Andy's arm and helped her back on to the chair. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  Green-eyes sat down and picked up her pen again. 'Right, are you ready to go on?' she asked.

  Andy nodded. She methodically went through everything else they'd need while Green-eyes took notes. When she'd finished, Green-eyes put her pen down on her notepad and nodded at her. 'We'll get most- of this stuff tomorrow morning,' she said. 'We start work the day after that.'

  Andy looked around the factory. 'Here?' she asked.

  'No. We'll be moving somewhere else.'

  'Can you tell me where?'

  'Not right now, no. But you'll know soon enough. Let me show you the fertiliser.'

  Green-eyes stood up and walked over to the tarpaulin-covered mound. She pulled the green sheet back. Dust billowed around her and she coughed.

  Andy went over to the stack of bags and examined the labels. She recognised the brand. It was an English firm, based just outside Oxford. Under the brand name were the words AMMONIUM NITRATE, and below that, in slightly smaller type, the word FERTILISER. To the right were three numbers, separated by hyphens: 34-0-0.

  'Okay?' asked Green-eyes.

  'It'll do,' said Andy. She'd half hoped that they wouldn't have the correct type of fertiliser, but now she realised that they knew exactly what they were doing. Some manufacturers coated their ammonium nitrate with calcium to stop it from absorbing water. But the calcium coating rendered the fertiliser useless as an explosive base. Other fertilisers were a mixture of chemicals, perhaps containing ammonium sulphate or urea. Only pure ammonium nitrate would explode, and that was what Green-eyes was showing her. The numbers on the bag referred to the ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash. Only pure ammonium nitrate had the ratio 34-0-0. There were other sacks, too, containing compost. Andy pointed at one of the compost bags. 'What are you planning to do with that? Compost isn't explosive.'

  Green-eyes ignored her.

  'Why are you doing this?' Andy asked.

  'Why do you care? You've done it before.'

  'That was a long time ago. A lifetime ago.'

  'Like riding a bike,' said Green-eyes. 'As soon as you get back in the saddle, it'll be as if you never gave it up.' She motioned to the Runner, and he came over and took Andy by the arm, leading her like a naughty child back to the office.

  – «»-«»-«»Mick Canning pushed the trolley down the aisle, scanning the rows of canned goods. He stopped by the soups section and took half a dozen cans of Heinz tomato soup off the shelves. He added a few cans of baked beans and spaghetti hoops to his trolley, sticking to the Heinz brand. He knew that children applied the same brand awareness to their food as they did to their clothing. Training shoes had to be Nike, Reebok or Adidas, beans had to be Heinz, fish fingers had to be Bird's Eye, cornflakes had to be Kellogg's. Anything else resulted in sneers and pushed-away plates. Canning's own children weren't much older than the Hayes girl – his son was eight and his daughter nine. He hadn't seen either for almost three months; they were living in Larne with their mother. Canning and his wife had separated, and the last letter he'd received from her solicitor made it clear that she wanted a divorce. And the house. In exchange, she was offering him unlimited access to the children, though she was insisting that they live with her. Canning knew there was no point in arguing, either with her or her solicitor. He was resigned to becoming a part-time father, but figured that being a part-time father was better than being no father at all.

  Canning paid in cash and took the carrier bags out to the carpark and loaded them into the boot of the Ford Mondeo. He turned on the radio and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove. If everything went to plan, it would all be over within two weeks. The Hayes girl would be back with her parents, Canning would have the rest of the hundred thousand pounds he'd been promised for the job, and he'd be able to get his soon-to-be-ex-wife and her money-grabbing solicitor off his back.

  – «»-«»-«»Laura O'Mara jumped as the doorbell rang. The c
lock on the mantelpiece said it was a quarter past seven, and she wasn't expecting visitors. She put her knitting on the coffee table and turned down the volume of the television set, then peered through the lace curtains. An expensive car, a black saloon, was parked in the road outside her house. She didn't know anyone with a black car. She went over to the door and slid the security chain home. Since her husband had died four years earlier, she'd always taken great care not to let strangers into the house. The newspapers were full of stories about old women being mugged for their life savings. Not that Laura O'Mara considered herself old. She was fifty-nine, and her own mother was still active and living alone, and she was in her mid-eighties. Nor did Laura O'Mara keep her life savings in her two-up, two-down cottage. She was too smart an investor for that. Her savings were tucked away in tax-efficient bonds and unit trusts, and she even had several thousand pounds in a Guernsey bank account, safe from the prying eyes of the taxman. But she did have some valuable porcelain, and she knew that children these days would smash up a person's house for the thrill of it. She eased open the door, keeping a reassuring hand on the lock.

  A man in a suit smiled down at her, wire-framed spectacles perched on the end of his nose. 'Mrs O'Mara?'

  She frowned. The illicit bank account sprang to mind, and she felt herself blush.

  The man looked at a clipboard he was carrying, then smiled again. He had even white teeth, she noticed, not a filling in his mouth. Mrs O'Mara's own teeth betrayed a childhood of sweets and adult years filled with smoking and coffee-drinking. She self-consciously put her hand up to cover her mouth as she returned his smile.

  'My name's Peter Cordingly,' he said. 'I'm with Dublin City social services.'

  He had an Irish accent, but it wasn't local. It was as if he'd spent some time away from Ireland, smoothing out the peaks and troughs so that his accent was somehow vague and hard to pin down. A bit like the man himself, thought Mrs O'Mara. He was a pleasant enough chap, but not particularly good-looking, with a bland, squarish face, and apart from the glasses he didn't have any distinguishing features.

  'I understand you've expressed concerns about one of the children at your school.' He looked at the clipboard again, pushing the spectacles further up his nose with his index finger. 'Katie Hayes?'

  'Oh, I only called her father. She was away without permission and…'

  The man held up a hand to silence her and leaned forward conspiratorially. 'Mrs O'Mara, could I come in and have a word with you about this?' He looked left and right as if he feared being overheard. 'What I have to say is a wee bit… confidential.'

  'Oh my,' said Mrs O'Mara. She unhooked the security chain and pulled the door open, eager to hear what it was exactly that Mr Hayes had done, all thoughts about the dangers of strangers totally forgotten.

  DAY FOUR

  Andy woke up as the fluorescent lights flickered into life. She squinted over at the door to the office. The Wrestler stood there with a brown paper bag in one hand and a paper cup in the other. He put them down on the floor in the centre of the room. 'Breakfast,' he said. He'd taken off his shoulder holster.

  Andy sat up and rubbed her eyes. 'Thank you,' she said.

  'She wants you outside in fifteen minutes.'

  'Okay.'

  The Wrestler went out and closed the door behind him. Andy climbed out of the sleeping bag that Green-eyes had given her the previous evening. There was no pillow – she'd had to rest her head on a rolled-up pullover, and now she had a crick in her neck. She picked up the brown paper bag and opened it. There was a croissant inside, and a bran muffin. She sat with her back against the wall and ate them both in between sips of hot coffee. She was surprised at how hungry she was, but then realised that she hadn't eaten for almost thirty-six hours.

  When Green-eyes had given her the sleeping bag, she'd shown Andy where the bathroom was, at the end of the corridor farthest from the factory area. All it contained was a washbasin and toilet, but it was better than nothing, and Green-eyes had told her she could use it whenever she wanted. There was one stipulation. Andy had to shout that she wanted to leave the office, to give her captors time to put on their ski masks if they weren't already wearing them.

  Andy got her washbag out of her suitcase and banged on the office door. 'I want to go to the bathroom!' she shouted.

  'Okay!' shouted Green-eyes, off in the distance. Andy opened the door and went along to the bathroom, had as good a wash as was possible in a sink, and brushed her teeth.

  Green-eyes was waiting for her in the factory area, still wearing the blue overalls and ski mask. The Runner was loading the bags of ammonium nitrate into the back of the blue Transit van.

  'Sleep well?' asked Green-eyes.

  'Do you care?' said Andy.

  'If it makes you feel any better, I slept on the floor too,' said Green-eyes. She nodded over at the far corner of the factory space. There were three rolled-up sleeping bags there, along with a couple of holdalls. The woman's pistol was on a small plastic table, along with the Wrestler's gun and holster.

  'It doesn't,' said Andy.

  'We'll be moving tomorrow anyway,' said Green-eyes.

  'Where to?'

  'You'll find out soon enough, Andrea.' Green-eyes pointed at the plastic chair on Andy's side of the table. 'Sit down.'

  Andy did as she was told.

  The Runner started loading the conifers into the back of the van, and then packed in the boxes of smaller plants.

  'I want you to go through the list again,' Green-eyes said to Andy. 'Everything we'll need for a four-thousand-pound fertiliser bomb.'

  'Don't you trust me?'

  The green eyes stared at Andy through the holes in the ski mask.

  Andy leaned forward. 'Or are you testing me, is that it? To check that I'm consistent?'

  'Maybe I just want to make sure that you didn't forget anything,' said the woman. 'Deliberately or otherwise.'

  'When can I see Katie?'

  'You can't. She's still in Ireland.'

  'Let me talk to her.'

  'I can't do that.'

  'I have to know that she's okay.'

  'You have my word.'

  Andy snorted. 'Why the hell should I believe anything you tell me?'

  'If you ever want to see Katie again, you've no choice,' said the woman.

  Andy glared at her. 'At least give me some sign that she's okay. A phone call. Anything.'

  'A photograph in front of today's paper?' said Green-eyes, her voice loaded with sarcasm.

  'Look, what you're asking me to do is complicated. Really complicated. And I'm going to find it impossible to concentrate if I'm worrying whether or not my daughter is alive. Doesn't that make sense to you?'

  Green-eyes tilted her head to one side as she looked at Andy. 'Maybe you're right at that,' she said. 'I'll see what I can do. Now, let's go through the list.'

  The Runner finished loading the Transit van. 'Oy, Don!' he yelled. Green-eyes stiffened. Andy pretended not to notice. 'Ammonium nitrate fertiliser,' she said. 'Ratio 34-0-0.'

  The Wrestler came out of one of the offices and headed over to the metal door. He began to pull on the chain to open it and the Runner climbed into the driver's seat of the van.

  'Aluminium powder. Pyro grade 400 mesh.' Andy fought to keep her voice steady. She brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes and smiled at the woman in the ski mask. 'Sawdust. Soap powder. Diesel oil.'

  The van engine kicked into life. Green-eyes began to write on her pad. Andy forced herself to breathe. Had she managed to convince Green-eyes that she hadn't heard the Runner's slip? That she didn't know that the man built like a wrestler was called Don?

  Andy kept talking. 'Three thousand two hundred pounds of fertiliser, six hundred pounds of aluminium powder.' Green-eyes pounds of sawdust and thirty pounds of soap powder.' Green-eyes continued to write as the Runner edged the van out of the factory. Andy stared at the pen as Green-eyes wrote. Did she know that Andy had heard the name? Was she pretending not to at
tach any significance to the slip so that Andy would think she was in the clear? Andy was trying to bluff Green-eyes; maybe Green-eyes was attempting a double bluff. One thing Andy knew for sure – if Green-eyes thought she'd caught the name, she was as good as dead. She continued to recite the list of components of the bomb, all the time staring at Green-eyes.

  To her left, the metal door rattled down. She heard the Wrestler climb into the van and slam the door, then it drove away.

  The woman looked up, her pen poised. Andy stared at her green eyes, wishing with all her heart that she could look inside the woman's mind and see for herself whether she was safe or whether her life had just been rendered forfeit by the mistake the Runner had made. Her mouth had gone suddenly dry, and when she swallowed she almost gagged.

  – «»-«»-«»O'Keefe stuffed his ski mask into the glove compartment. 'I should fucking blow your brains out here and now,' he said.

  Quinn looked across at him, his mouth open in surprise. 'What?'

  O'Keefe pointed a finger at Quinn's face, just inches from the man's nose. 'You're a fucking amateur. A fucking piece of shit amateur.'

  'Don, what the hell's got up your arse?' Quinn sounded genuinely confused. He braked and brought the van to a halt at the roadside.

  'You used my name, you ignorant, stupid shit.'

  Quinn gripped the steering wheel with both hands. 'What the fuck are you talking about?'

  O'Keefe jerked his thumb back at the industrial estate behind them. 'Back there. You called me Don.'

  'I fucking did not.'

  'I'm not imagining it, Quinn. I'm not plucking this out of the fucking ether. I was in the bog, you were loading the van. What did you shout?'

  Quinn ran a hand through his thick red hair. 'I don't know. But I know I wouldn't use your name. I'm not stupid.'

  O'Keefe seized Quinn by the throat, his big, square hand gripping either side of the younger man's neck like a vice. Quinn's eyes widened and his gloved hands clawed ineffectually at O'Keefe's iron-hard fingers. His lips moved silently, white spittle dribbling down his chin. O'Keefe's other hand grabbed Quinn's hair and he yanked the man's head back so that he was staring fearfully up at the roof of the van. 'Not stupid!' O'Keefe screamed. 'Not fucking stupid! I'll give you not fucking stupid!' He tightened his grip on Quinn's throat, threatening to crush his windpipe. 'Now, think back, you little shit. Think back to what you said.'