The Bombmaker

by Stephen Leather

  They watched as the digital read-out counted down to zero. The flashlight bulb winked on. 'Bang!' whispered Green-eyes, her eyes burning with fanaticism.

  – «»-«»-«»Liam Denham wandered into the briefing room. There were two dozen agents in the room, talking into phones or tapping on computer keyboards. He smiled to himself. It was the new face of intelligence work, a face he doubted he'd ever have been able to embrace even if he'd remained in the job. Intelligence-gathering had become an office job, a job done by suits, by graduates who drank Perrier and played squash every lunch-time. But to Denham, intelligence meant people. It meant persuading people to part with information and that involved face-to-face contact. It might mean meeting them in a pub and talking over a few drinks, it might mean getting a bit physical in a locked room, or handing over an envelope packed with cash, but whatever the means, it was all down to people.

  Denham took a long drag on his cigarette and blew smoke up to the ceiling, dangerously close to a smoke detector. One of the agents, a man in his twenties with red-framed spectacles and swept-back blond hair, coughed pointedly. Denham held the cigarette behind his back and walked over to where Patsy was sitting at a desk, deep in conversation with Lisa Davies. She looked up, her face flushed with excitement.

  'Liam. I think we've got a lead on the van they took Andrea away in. The Transit. It's made more than half a dozen trips into the City over the past two months. The last one three days ago.'

  Lisa handed Denham a computer print-out. It was a list of dates and times. The first date was about a week before Katie had been kidnapped. At the top of the print-out was a description of the van and its registration number.

  'City of London police,' said Patsy in answer to Den-ham's unspoken question. 'They record all vehicles entering and leaving the centre.'

  'The Ring of Steel?' That was what the press had christened the security arrangements that effectively sealed off the financial district from the rest of the capital.

  'I think we can assume that London's the target now,' said Patsy.

  Denham handed the print-out back to Lisa. 'What next?' he asked.

  'We're going to have to inform the City of London police and the Met. They can start looking for the van. But until we know exactly where the bomb is, there's not much else we can do. There're millions of square feet of office space in the City – we can hardly search it all. Not without tipping the terrorists off that we're on to them.'

  Lisa's brow furrowed into deep creases. 'Shouldn't we be warning people, giving them the chance to stay out of the City?'

  Patsy stood up, shaking her head. 'Absolutely not. There'd be an uncontrollable panic. The City would grind to a halt. Billions of pounds would be lost.'

  'Maybe that's what they want,' mused Denham.

  'What do you mean?' asked Patsy.

  'Maybe that's what all this is about. Maybe it's financial and not political.'

  Patsy pulled a face. 'Extortion, you mean?'

  'If it was political, there are easier places to stage a spectacular.'

  'That's assuming it is a spectacular, Liam.'

  'Six trips? They must be using the van to transport equipment. Six trips is a lot of equipment, so I think it's fair to assume it's going to be a big one. They wouldn't go to all this trouble to build a few letter bombs, would they?'

  'That's what you think? They're building the bomb on-site?'

  Denham took another drag on his cigarette, ignoring the look of annoyance that flashed across Carter's face. She was less than half his age, and Denham figured he'd earned the right to smoke. 'Why else?'

  'They could have been dry runs. I wouldn't want to rule anything out at this stage.'

  Denham nodded at the print-out. 'They stayed in the City overnight once. They must have been parked up. Doubt they'd do that if it was a rehearsal.'

  Patsy considered what Denham had said and then nodded slowly. 'So, it's a big bomb, but you think it's not political? The IRA bombed the Baltic Exchange and Bishopsgate. And remember Harrods?'

  Denham looked around for an ashtray. There wasn't one within reach so he held his cigarette vertically so as not to spill ash on to the carpet. 'That was before the increased security. I don't know. Maybe you're right. At this stage we shouldn't be ruling anything out.'

  Patsy looked at her wristwatch. 'Hetherington's going to be here in a few minutes. I'd better brief him.'

  'One thing before you rush off,' said Denham. 'The wee girl?'

  'What about her?'

  "What are we doing to find her?'

  Patsy looked uncomfortable, and Denham realised he'd touched a nerve. 'There's not a lot we can do from here,' she said.

  'What about the Garda Siochana? Couldn't they be looking?'

  Patsy put a hand on Denham's arm and guided him away from Carter's desk. She took him over to a relatively quiet corner of the room. 'Liam, we can't be making waves over there. If the kidnappers know we're on to them, first of all they might kill the girl, and secondly it'll tip off the bomb-makers that we know what they're up to.'

  'Maybe not,' said Denham. 'They don't know that we know about Andrea's past. There's no reason that the Garda couldn't be investigating a straightforward kidnapping.'

  'But if the men building the bomb realise we're looking for the girl, they'll hardly allow Andrea to telephone her. Or her husband.'

  The cigarette in Denham's hand had burnt down to the filter. He looked around for somewhere to put it and spotted a half-empty plastic coffee cup. He dropped the butt in the cup, then turned back to Patsy. "We've got to do something, Patsy. We can't just abandon the wee girl.'

  'Priorities, Liam. We neutralise the bomb. We take the participants into custody. Then we get the girl back. It has to be done in that order.'

  Denham sighed mournfully. 'Aye, you might be right.'

  'How's the husband?'

  'He's bearing up. God knows how, considering what he's going through.'

  'And McCormack. Have you heard from McCormack?'

  'Not yet. I'll give him a call.'

  Patsy looked at her watch again. 'I've got to go, Liam. I'll talk to you later, okay?'

  Denham watched her walk away. She was right, of course. The bomb took precedence over Katie. But knowing the decision was a logical one didn't make it any easier to accept. Denham had lost a child, a long, long time ago, and the pain was something he wouldn't wish on anyone. He lit another cigarette, then went in search of an empty office from where he could phone McCormack.

  He had written McCormack's number in the small black notebook that he always carried with him, even after he'd left Special Branch. It rang out for more than a minute before the IRA man answered, and when he did he sounded out of breath. 'Ah, it's you, Liam. I might have guessed.'

  'Are you okay, Thomas?'

  'I was in the bath, having a soak. I'm standing here dripping water all over the hall carpet, and if my wife catches me we'll both be in trouble.'

  'Do you want to dry off? I'll wait.'

  'No need, this won't take long. It's names you're ringing for, I suppose.' McCormack laughed softly. 'Right turn of events this, isn't it?'

  'The way of the world, Thomas. The new order. Did you come up with anyone?'

  'I've one name. George McEvoy. Do you know him?'

  'I know of him. Did twelve in Long Kesh, didn't he?'

  'That's him. He was with the Civil Administration Team. Lives in Dundalk with his brother, but he hasn't been seen for a while.'

  'How long a while?'

  'A month. His brother doesn't know where he is, but George told him he'd be away for a few weeks.'

  'Has he had experience in bomb-making?'

  There was a long silence from McCormack, then a faint whistling sound, as if he were exhaling through clenched teeth. 'Jesus, Chief Inspector, you're not asking for much, are you?'

  'I need to know, Thomas. We think they're in London. I think they're planning a spectacular.'

  'Well, McEvoy wouldn't be the ma
n for that. He was never technical.'

  'Never attached to the England Department?'

  'Definitely not. To the best of my knowledge, he's never even been across the water.'

  'What was he doing with the CAT?'

  'What do you think? He wasn't handing out brownie points, that's for sure.'

  'Punishment beatings? Knee-cappings?'

  'That's what CAT does.'

  'Kidnappings?'

  There was another pause, shorter this time. 'I see what you mean. Yes, he could be the one who's got the little girl.'

  'Do you have any idea where he might be?'

  'No. I'm afraid not, Liam. He's disappeared.'

  'Can you give me his address? I'll run a check on his credit cards, just in case.'

  McCormack gave Denham the address and he wrote it down in his notebook. 'Anyone else gone missing?' he asked.

  'No one obvious. There's a limit to what I can find out, though. Some of the ASUs are still active – they're underground and impossible to check on. Not without questions being asked, questions that I'd find bloody difficult to answer.'

  'Are you telling me you've got ASUs in the UK, still active?'

  'And I suppose you've pulled all your agents out, have you?'

  'I don't have agents any more, Thomas. I'm retired.'

  'Special Branch, then. MI5. SAS. 14th Int. They're all still on the ground, North and South, so why would you expect the England Department to stand down?'

  'And there's no way of accounting for them?'

  'Not without going through the Army Council, no. But I can tell you that there's no way the England Department is involved in any sort of spectacular. I give you my word on that.'

  'Not even in a freelance capacity?'

  'That wouldn't be a possibility. Not in a million years. Did you talk to Micky Geraghty?'

  This time it was Denham who hesitated. McCormack picked up on it immediately.

  'What's wrong?'

  'He's dead, Thomas. Murdered. Someone tortured him, presumably to get information on Andrea Sheridan.'

  'Shit,' said McCormack quietly. 'He was a good 'un.'

  Denham said nothing. Geraghty had been an IRA volunteer, a sniper with a good number of kills to his credit. While he took no pleasure in the man's death, he wasn't about to grieve for him.

  'Who's going to be handling the arrangements?' McCormack asked.

  Denham explained that they'd had to leave the body where they'd found it, in the basement of the farmhouse. 'There isn't going to be a funeral, at least not until we've got this sorted out,' he said.

  'Do me a favour,' said McCormack. 'Call me when it's over. I'll take care of it.'

  Denham promised that he would. The IRA would probably give Geraghty a full military funeral, a tricolour draped over the coffin and men in ski masks firing a volley of shots into the air. It would be a celebration of the man's career with the terrorist organisation, but Denham knew it would be churlish not to agree to McCormack's request. He stabbed the remains of his cigarette into a metal ashtray next to the phone, and immediately felt the craving to light up another one. He decided to call his wife instead.

  – «»-«»-«»The door to Jason Hetherington's office was ajar, but Patsy still knocked before entering. He was sitting behind his desk, reading a file, an antique pair of pince-nez glasses perched on the end of his nose. The glasses were an affectation, as was the ever-present white rose in his buttonhole, grown in his own Sussex garden. He looked up as Patsy walked in and gave her a broad smile. He was wearing a dark blue Savile Row suit with the faintest of pin-stripes, a crisp white shirt and a Garrick Club tie. 'Patsy, my dear, thanks for dropping by.' Hetherington was Deputy Director-General (Operational), second only to MI5's Director-General. He was responsible for all the agency's operational activities, from counter-subversion and counter-espionage to intelligence-gathering, and had been Patsy's mentor for the past ten years. It was his decision to send her to Belfast to head up the Irish Counter-Terrorism section, with the promise that in the near future she'd be brought back to Thames House as his number two. 'Any news?'

  'It's definitely London,' she said, dropping into one of the chairs opposite Hetherington's desk.

  Hetherington took off his spectacles and placed them carefully on top of the file he'd been studying. 'Ah, that's not good.'

  Patsy smiled at the understatement. 'A van they've been using has been in and out of the City.'

  'And your recommended course of action?'

  'We look for the van, obviously. We'll liaise with the local police, but we won't be telling them why we want the van. And we're looking for Quinn.'

  'The blagger?' The slang sounded strange in Hetherington's upper-crust accent. It was another affectation of his, as if he were keen to show that despite his Eton and Oxford background he was still one of the boys.

  'Again, we'll use the local police, but without saying why he's wanted. They're being told not to approach him if he's spotted.'

  'Do we have any other names in the frame?'

  'Just Mark Quinn. We're assuming that the device is being constructed somewhere in the City, so we're working through all new leases taken on within the past six months, cross-referencing with company records and VAT data, looking for companies with no track record. We'll follow up with visits.'

  Hetherington shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 'That could take for ever.'

  'It's an outside chance considering the possible timeframe, but long shots sometimes pay off.'

  'And the telephone surveillance is in place?'

  'GCHQ are on-line and BT and Telecom Eireann are cooperating fully.'

  'Another long shot?'

  Patsy looked pained. Hetherington wasn't being critical -he was one of the most supportive bosses Patsy had ever worked for- but she was all too well aware of how little they had to go on. Two long shots and a needle in a haystack.

  'She's called her husband once,' said Patsy. 'We believe she'll try again.'

  'The attempt on his life worries me, Patsy. I don't see any logic in it.'

  'The house was bugged,' said Patsy. 'We discovered one on the phone when our people went in to switch off the answering machine. We swept it from top to bottom and found others.'

  'So even without visual surveillance, they'd know that the police were involved.'

  Patsy nodded. 'They'd know that he'd been taken into the Garda station. I suppose they were moving to limit the damage.'

  Hetherington nodded. 'Very well. But doesn't that make it more likely that they won't let her telephone her husband? Knowing that he's fled the house?'

  'They might assume that all she'll get is the machine.'

  Hethrington grimaced, as if he had a bad taste in his mouth.

  'I know, shots don't come any longer. But if they think he's not at home, it'll reassure her to leave a message for him, at no risk to the kidnappers.' Hetherington still didn't look convinced, and Patsy didn't blame him. She spoke quickly, not giving him the chance to interrupt. 'A stronger possibility is that she'll be able to get to a phone of her own accord. Call her husband without them knowing. Having said that, I do feel it's more likely that it's her daughter she'll try to make contact with. And the kidnappers have no reason not to allow her to speak to her daughter.'

  'Unless she's already dead.' Hetherington toyed with his wedding ring and leaned back in his chair, his brow furrowed as he considered their options. They sat in silence for a while. 'Possible targets?' he said eventually.

  'If it's political, it could be anything from the Stock Exchange to the Bank of England. Mansion House. Another go at the Baltic Exchange. If it's a high profile they want, they could be targeting the NatWest Tower or Lloyd's of London.'

  'So can we at least increase security there?'

  'I'm reluctant to inform the local police, Jason. At the moment, possibly fifty people know of this threat, and almost all of them work for us. If we bring in the Met and the City of London police, we're talking about hundred
s of people. Thousands.'

  Hetherington steepled his fingers under his chin. 'They could search a lot faster.'

  'Except the act of searching might well precipitate events. Plus, there'd be leakage. All it takes is one copper warning his wife to stay out of the City for a while. She mentions it to a friend, the friend gets on to the press, and we're splashed all over the front page of the Sun.'

  'A D-notice would put paid to that.'

  'Word would still get around. I'd rather keep it in-house for as long as possible. But I take your point about increasing security at the more obvious targets. Most buildings employ their own security. I can have a quiet word.'

  'I'd like a list,' said Hetherington. 'What about possible American targets?'

  'There are no US government buildings within the security cordon. But there are plenty of American financial institutions.'

  'Is there anything we can do there to increase security?'

  Patsy nodded thoughtfully. 'I'll draw up a list,' she said.

  'And we're still not issuing a formal warning to the Americans?'

  'We've no reason to think that the target's American. And they do have a tendency to overreact.'

  Hetherington chuckled dryly. 'Yes, I suppose they do. But if you get so much as an inkling that this venture is aimed at the Americans, I have to know tout de suite.'

  Another affectation. Hetherington liked to throw the odd French phrase into his conversations, especially when he was under pressure.

  'Are you sure that GCHQ won't inform the Americans? Echelon being under the NSA's wing, as it were.'

  'We're using our own dictionary and GCHQ's K Division is handling the traffic. We should be able to keep the NSA at arm's length. For a while, at least.'

  'Right,' said Hetherington, leaning forward again. 'The JIC meets tomorrow. I'm going to need a full report before last thing tonight.'

  'It'll be on your desk by five,' promised Patsy.

  She knew there was no point in asking her boss to hold off informing the Joint Intelligence Committee. The committee met every week in the Cabinet Office, and in theory the entire British intelligence community was answerable to it – MI5, MI6, GCHQ and the Defence Intelligence Service. The chairman reported directly to the Cabinet Secretary and therefore to the Prime Minister. The fact that GCHQ had already been asked for assistance effectively forced Hetherington's hand. He'd have to notify JIC of the bomb threat at the first available opportunity in case the committee heard it first from GCHQ.