The Bombmaker

by Stephen Leather

  After half an hour May whispered into Deng's ear that a regular customer of hers had arrived and did he mind if she left his table. He kissed her on the lips and told that he was more than happy with Summer. May swiped her card through the reader and went over to another table.

  An hour later and Deng was in bed with Summer in a Kowloon Tong love hotel. It was one of Deng's favourite places to take girls – every room had a different theme. There was an Arabian Nights room, a Wild West room, a Parisian Brothel room, and each came with a set of costumes which could be worn if desired. Deng had been more than a dozen times and had never been in the same fantasy twice. He and Summer were in a room made up to look like a Swiss cottage, lined with wood, a big cuckoo clock on one wall and a mural of an Alpine scene framed in a mock window.

  Deng lay on his back as Summer rode him, her mouth slightly open, showing perfect white teeth, her head thrown back so that her hair brushed against his thighs every time she ground against him. She was good, she was very good, and Deng had to fight to stop himself from coming too soon. His hands moved up her soft, compliant body and he caressed her breasts. She put her hands on top of his, squeezing him, moaning softly. She'd told him that she wanted to be an actress, that she was taking acting lessons and had a producer friend who'd promised her a part in his next kung-fu film. Deng could see that she had talent.

  He could feel himself passing the point of no return and he pounded into her, half disappointed that he hadn't managed to last longer. He came inside her and she fell down on top of him, kissing his neck and whispering his name. That was a nice touch, he thought. Almost as if she cared. She squeezed him inside her, draining every last drop from him. Deng smiled and stroked her hair. Another nice touch. He'd be back to see Summer again, he decided. Maybe even offer to set her up in a flat. A small one, mind – there was no reason to be extravagant, not when Hong Kong was so full of pretty young girls.

  Deng heard a noise at the door. The sound of a key being turned. 'We've not finished yet,' he shouted in Cantonese. He'd paid for two hours and he still had thirty minutes left. There was silence, and muffled voices, then the door burst open. Summer rolled off him and pulled the sheet around her. Deng sat up. What little remained of his erection shrank to nothing. It was Michael Wong. And three of his Red Poles. Triad heavies. One of the Red Poles closed the door and stood with his back against it. The other two men had handguns. Big ones.

  Wong grinned, showing a gold tooth at the back of his mouth. 'Good, was she?' he asked in guttural Mandarin.

  Deng pushed himself back against the headboard. 'What's this about, Michael?'

  Wong walked over to Summer. She looked up at him fearfully, forcing a smile. 'Hello, Summer,' he said, in Cantonese. 'Long time no see.'

  Summer was shaking, and her smile was little more than a baring of teeth, the smile of a frightened dog. 'Hello, Mr Wong,' she said. She wasn't such a good actress after all, Deng realised.

  Wong grinned at Deng again. 'Did she go down on you? Great mouth, Summer has. She's got this trick of taking it all, you know? All the way in.' He looked across at the frightened girl. 'Don't you, Summer?'

  She nodded, her eyes wide with fear. Wong beckoned for her to come closer. She crawled over to him, letting the sheet slip from her body. Her skin was still glossy with sweat. Wong unzipped his fly and took his penis out. Without being asked, Summer slipped off the bed and knelt down in front of him. He gripped her hair tightly with one hand as he worked himself in and out of her mouth, barely giving her a chance to breathe. Deng turned his head away in disgust.

  'Don't you look away, you piece of shit,' said Wong. Summer was moaning softly, caressing the back of Wong's thighs, her head moving back and forth, matching his rhythm. Wong came quickly, holding Summer's head tightly until he was sure that she'd swallowed, then he grunted and pushed her away. She crawled back to the bed and wrapped the sheet around herself. She bent almost double, as if trying to make herself as small as possible, and scampered towards the bathroom. Wong pulled a silenced automatic from inside his jacket and pointed it at her. She froze. He pointed the gun at one of the armchairs and she went over to it and sat down, wrapping her arms tightly around her knees.

  'There's no need for this, Michael,' said Deng.

  'Where's my fucking money?'

  'You'll have it soon.'

  'That's not what I've heard.' He nodded at the frightened girl. 'The thing I can't work out is why you're in a short-time hotel fucking hookers when what you should be doing is getting back my twenty million dollars.'

  'It's in hand,' said Deng. 'One more week and our problems are solved, I promise.'

  'I've heard your promises before, Deng.'

  Summer began to whimper. She begged Wong to let her go, and he glared at her with contempt. 'Shut up, whore,' he said in Cantonese.

  Summer fell silent and pulled the sheet tighter around her neck. Tears began to run down her cheeks.

  'The triad entrusted you with twenty million dollars,' Wong said, walking to the foot of the bed and staring down at Deng. 'Twenty million US dollars. Then you come and tell us that we're at risk of losing that investment.'

  Deng held his hands up defensively in front of his face. 'We're all in the same boat, Michael,' he said. 'The bank invested more than a hundred million dollars of its own money. We've investors in Singapore and Thailand. We've all…'

  The gun kicked in Wong's hand. The only noise it made was a slight coughing sound. A bullet buried itself in the pillow by Deng's side and a few small white feathers fluttered into the air. 'I don't care about your bank. I don't care about the other investors. You lied to us. You took the Triad's twenty million dollars and you fucking lied to us.' Wong looked at Deng dispassionately, tapping the barrel of his silenced gun against his lips. 'How can I convince you how serious I am?' he asked. He slowly pointed the weapon at Deng's left foot. 'Perhaps if I gave you a limp. Do you think then you'd realise how important this is to me and my associates?'

  Deng drew his foot back. Wong grinned malevolently and pointed the gun at Deng's groin.

  'Or maybe I should blow something else off? Something a little closer to home? Do you have children?'

  Deng nodded. 'Two.'

  'Boys or girls?'

  'Two boys.'

  Wong nodded thoughtfully. 'Two sons? You are a lucky man. It's good to see how flexible the motherland is regarding the one family, one child policy.' He tightened his finger on the trigger. Deng's hands went across his groin in a reflex action. 'There's no flexibility here in Hong Kong, Deng. We want our money. All of it.'

  'I told you, you'll have it. Every last penny.'

  'That's good. Because if we don't, I'll kill you, your wife, your two precious sons, and every other member of your family I can find. That goes for you and the rest of the members of the board. I want you to tell them that, Deng. Tell them from me.'

  Deng nodded furiously. 'I will. Of course I will.'

  Wong shook his head. 'But I have to do something to show you how serious I am.'

  Deng shook his head even faster, his breath coming in ragged gasps. 'Please don't,' he whimpered.

  Wong grinned scornfully. He pointed the gun at Deng's chest, then quickly moved his gun arm in a smooth motion around to his right and shot Summer in the face. Blood and bone fragments splattered across the wall behind her, a smear of red across the Alpine snow scene, and she fell backwards without a sound, what was left of her face staring up at the ceiling.

  Deng put his hands up to his mouth, horrified at what the Triad leader had done, but relieved, too, that it had been the prostitute who had died. It could so easily have been him.

  'I'll leave the mess for you to clean up,' said Wong, putting his gun back inside his jacket. 'I'm sure you know the right sort of people.'

  DAY SEVEN

  Andy woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the office door. It was Green-eyes, with a mug of coffee and a croissant. Andy had spent the night on a leather sofa with one of her p
ullovers as a pillow. She sat up and took the coffee and pastry.

  'We finished the drying a few hours ago,' said Green-eyes.

  'You haven't slept?'

  'I'll catch a few hours once we've started on the next stage.'

  Andy put her coffee mug down and ran a hand through her hair. 'I could do with a shower.'

  'You and me both. But the washrooms are all we have. A full washbasin is the best we can do. Sorry.' Green-eyes looked at her wristwatch. 'Ready in ten minutes, right? The troops are waiting.'

  Green-eyes went back to the office floor. Andy drank her coffee and ate half the croissant, then went to the washroom to clean her teeth and wipe herself over with a damp flannel.

  Green-eyes and the two men were waiting for her in the office area. The temperature had dropped to a more bearable high seventies now that the ovens were switched off. The four electric woks had been taken out of their cardboard boxes and were lined up on the desks. Andy went over and examined them. They were Teflon-coated, with dials that controlled the heat settings.

  'Right,' said Green-eyes. 'What do we do?'

  Andy picked up one of the five-gallon cans of alcohol. 'We use this to wash the ammonium nitrate. It gets the impurities out of it.'

  She went over to the pile of black garbage bags and dragged one of them over to the woks. 'You need a container. The Tupperware'll do. Half fill it with the ammonium nitrate, then pour in just enough alcohol to cover it. Stir it well for about three minutes, then pour off the alcohol. It should go a dirty brown. You can use it a few times. Okay?'

  Green-eyes and her colleagues nodded.

  'Okay, so then we have to evaporate off the alcohol. Pour the wet ammonium nitrate into the wok and sort of stir-fry it. You've got to keep it moving, at a low heat. The same applies as when we were drying it in the ovens – try to keep the temperature around one hundred and fifty degrees. You've got to keep watching it. If it gets to four hundred degrees, it'll blow.' She looked around the office. 'The fumes can be fierce. I'd suggest we spread out, and use the fans.'

  'What about the respirators?' asked Green-eyes.

  'No use. The respirators are for particles, not fumes. The best thing would be to open the windows, but that's not possible, so we'll have to make do with the fans. I warn you now, it'll give you a headache.'

  'How long do we heat it for?'

  'Three or four minutes should do. It's just like when you stir-fry food – keep it hot and keep it moving.'

  Green-eyes grinned. 'You might have to give the boys a demonstration. I don't think they're particularly at home in the kitchen.'

  She laughed, and Andy started to laugh along with her. She stopped suddenly when she realised what she was doing. She was laughing with the woman responsible for kidnapping her daughter, the woman who was forcing her to build a four-thousand-pound bomb in the City of London. Green-eyes stopped laughing too. She stood looking at Andy, as if sensing her confusion. 'Go on, Andrea,' she said. 'What then?'

  Andy clenched and unclenched her hands, bunching them into fists and then relaxing them. What could she be thinking of? These weren't her friends, she shouldn't be enjoying herself, she shouldn't be letting her guard down. How dare she laugh with them? It was a betrayal – she was betraying Katie and she was betraying Martin. They both deserved better.

  'What then, Andrea?' Green-eyes repeated.

  'You have to grind it up into a fine powder,' said Andy, her voice shaking. 'In the coffee grinders. A couple of minutes should do it. Then seal it back in the Tupperware containers as quickly as possible. Every second it's exposed to the air, it absorbs water.'

  The Wrestler held up a hand, pointing a finger at her. 'Wait one fucking minute,' he said. 'We've already treated all three thousand and odd pounds of it. Pound by pound. Are you saying we have to do it again?'

  'That's right. It all has to be treated. It has to be uniformly pure, uniformly fine. If there are wet spots, or rough spots, the detonation velocity won't be consistent.'

  'It's going to take for ever,' moaned the Runner. The Wrestler and the Runner stood looking at each other, clearly unhappy at the prospect of the work that lay ahead.

  Green-eyes went over to Andy. 'Why don't you get yourself a coffee, Andrea. I want to have a word with the boys.'

  Andrea went off to the meeting room, knowing that Green-eyes was going to give the men a talking-to. She closed the door behind her, poured herself a mug of coffee and set it down on the table. She looked through the glass panel at the office opposite. She had just about plucked up the courage to open the door and tiptoe across the corridor when she heard footsteps. She rushed back to the table and picked up her mug of coffee just as the door opened. It was Green-eyes. 'Right. Come on,' she said to Andy. 'Let's get started.'

  – «»-«»-«»Martin Hayes telephoned the Strand Palace Hotel from a call-box at Belfast airport ten minutes before he was due to board his flight to London and asked to speak to someone on reception. A girl answered, and Martin explained that his wife had stayed there the previous Wednesday night and asked if she'd left a message for him. The girl checked and said that no, there was no message. Martin thanked her and cut the connection. He called Padraig's mobile and his partner answered. Martin thanked him again for driving him up to Belfast and for waiting with him in the airport carpark until dawn broke. He reminded his partner to check on his dog, thanked him again, then hung up and went to catch his flight.

  He arrived at Heathrow at nine o'clock in the morning and caught a black cab to the Strand. He figured that whoever had answered the phone would have been at the end of the night shift and had probably gone home. To make absolutely sure that he didn't speak to the same person, he went up to a young man in a black suit. Martin wasn't sure why he was in the hotel – he just knew that it was the only link he had to Andy. She'd have known that too, so if she'd left any sort of trail it had to have been at the hotel. He leaned forward over the reception counter and smiled at the man. 'My wife lost an earring when she was staying here last week. Can you tell me if anything was handed in after she checked out?'

  The man tapped away on his computer and shook his head. 'Nope, nothing was handed in,' he said. 'And Housekeeping haven't reported finding anything.'

  Martin sighed. 'Damn. It was hellish expensive. Diamond. Cost me an arm and a leg. Look, I don't suppose I could have a quick look around, could I? Just to check?'

  The man consulted his computer again. 'The room's empty. I don't see why not.' He look around. 'I'll get someone to go up with you.'

  'That's okay, I don't want to trouble anybody.'

  'Security, sir,' said the man. He waved over a teenage bell-boy in a beige uniform and handed him a key before explaining the situation.

  The bell-boy took Martin up to the fifth floor and opened the door for him. 'An earring, huh?' he said, bending down and looking under the bed.

  'Yeah. Gold with a diamond.' Martin went into the bathroom and looked around. If he'd been Andy, where would he have hidden a message? The toilet cistern was boxed in and there was no way he could see of removing the base of the bath or shower. There was a small ventilation grille close to the ceiling but the screws holding it in place had been painted over and there was no sign of it having been moved.

  He went back into the bedroom and put his briefcase on the dressing table. The bell-boy was still on his hands and knees, peering under the bed. Martin took his wallet out and gave the teenager a twenty-pound note. 'There's no point in me holding you up, lad,' said Martin. 'I'll have a look around myself, yeah?'

  'Are you sure, sir?' said the teenager as the note smoothly disappeared into his pocket. 'I don't mind helping.'

  'Nah, you go on down. I won't be long.'

  The bell-boy left, closing the door behind him. Martin stood in the middle of the bedroom. 'Come on, Andy,' he whispered. 'You must have left me something. You must have.'

  He looked at the bed. She couldn't have left anything there – the bedding would be changed after every gue
st. He went over to the desk and checked the drawers. There was a wallet of hotel stationery and Martin went through it piece by piece. Nothing. He flicked through the pages of the Gideon Bible. Nothing. Most of the drawers were empty. There was a picture above the writing desk. A banal water-colour, probably reproduced in its hundreds specifically to hang in hotel bedrooms. Martin reckoned he could probably have done a better job himself. It was a gondola with a young couple cuddling in front, a bored gondolier in a large black hat standing at the rear. The perspective was wrong – the buildings at the far side of the canal seemed to be leaning to the right, and the shadows weren't consistent. It didn't even look like Venice. Martin's breath caught in his throat. Venice? What had Andy said when she phoned? Going back to Venice. A place she'd never been to. He ran his hands around the frame. It wouldn't move. It was screwed to the wall. There were four screws, two on the right, two on the left.

  With trembling hands, Martin searched through his pockets for a penny. He found one, and used it to take out the screws. He pulled the painting away from the wall and a sheet of paper fluttered to the floor. Martin tossed the painting on to the bed and picked up the sheet of paper. As he straightened up, he was startled by an angry voice behind him.

  'What the hell do you think you're doing?'

  The receptionist in the black suit was standing in the doorway, the key to the room in his hand.

  'I'm sorry,' said Martin. He folded the piece of paper and thrust it into his jacket pocket.

  The receptionist looked at the picture, and at the space on the wall where it had been hanging.

  'I'll pay for the damage,' said Martin, taking out his wallet.

  'You'll stay right where you are,' said the man, holding his hands up as if warding off an attack. 'I'm calling Security.'

  'There's no need for that. All I did was take the painting down.' He pointed at the desk. 'Look, the screws are there. Hell, man, I'll even put it back for you.'