Stephen Leather - The Double Tap

She kissed him between his shoulder-blades, her soft breasts pressed tight against his back, her hands making him hard and erect. ‘Tell me what you’re going to do, Dermott.’ Her hands tightened and he moaned. She loosened her grip and then rubbed him, agonisingly slowly, teasing him until he was almost crazy with desire. ‘Tell me, Dermott. Tell me what you’re going to do.’

Lynch tried to turn again but she pressed him against the wall of the shower cubicle, keeping her grip on him. ‘I’m going to kill him,’ he gasped. ‘I’m going to shoot him like a mad dog.’

Marie let him go and he twisted around. He grabbed her and picked her up. She pushed herself away from him, her eyes hard. ‘You promise?’ she urged. ‘You swear you’ll do it?’

‘Yes,’ he gasped. Marie raised her legs as he pushed her against the wall and he entered her, so hard that she almost screamed.

Cramer walked along the corridor to his bedroom. A strip of light shone from under the door to Vander Mayer’s study. He stopped and listened but couldn’t hear anything so he knocked gently. Su-ming asked who it was.

‘It’s me.’

‘What do you want?’

Cramer thought about that for a few seconds. He wasn’t sure exactly what he did want, or why he’d knocked on the door.

‘Come in,’ she said eventually. Cramer pushed open the door. She was sitting on a black leather sofa at the far end of the room, her legs curled up under her. By her side was a small stack of paper and she was holding a sheet in her hands. Cramer saw to his surprise that she was wearing glasses, a pair of oval lenses in a thin wire frame. She took them off as she looked at him. ‘What’s wrong, Mike Cramer? Can’t you sleep?’

Cramer walked over to the window. The study was as big as the master bedroom with views to the north, towards the hotel with its curved balconies and white stone walls and the brick-built office complexes of Chelsea Harbour. Between the tower block and the hotel was a small marina with a channel leading to the Thames. The boats moored in the marina were big, expensive models, vessels to be seen on, not to sail. To the left and right of the marina were smaller apartment blocks, their walls as white and gleaming as the boats in the water. ‘I’m sorry about earlier on,’ said Cramer. He paced the length of the room. The far end was covered with mirrored tiles, giving the illusion that the office was twice its true size. He watched her in the mirrored wall. She looked like a teenager studying for an important exam.

‘Earlier?’

‘That business with the Russian. I was out of order.’

She didn’t reply and he turned to face her. She was watching him with an amused smile on her face. ‘You were like a child who’d been told he couldn’t open his Christmas present yet,’ she said.

Cramer grinned sheepishly. ‘Yeah. I behaved like a kid, didn’t I?’

‘You’re not a man who likes secrets. But you’re right, you did behave badly. You could have jeopardised our position. Mr Vander Mayer has spent a lot of time and money trying to get in touch with Mr Tarlanov.’

Cramer pointed at the papers she was reading. ‘Those are the papers he left?’

Su-ming nodded. ‘They’re very technical. I’m having trouble with some of the terms.’

‘I’m amazed that you can even speak Russian.’

She pulled a face. ‘Languages aren’t that difficult. Grammar and vocabulary, that’s all. Once you’ve studied two or three you start to see the patterns, then it’s just a matter of memorisation.’

Cramer walked over to the large desk that dominated the far end of the study, facing away from the mirrored wall. Apart from a computer and VDU and two telephones, it was bare. On the wall behind the desk was a large map of the world. Cramer stared at it. England looked so small, so insignificant, compared with the total land mass of the world. There was something egocentric about the way it was placed dead centre, as if everything else revolved around it. That might have been the case in the days when most of the map was coloured pink and the British had an empire, but now it was little more than a small island on the edge of Europe.

‘Are you trying to find yourself, Mike Cramer?’

Cramer smiled. Nothing could have been further from the truth. He knew exactly where he was and where he was heading. He turned away from the map. ‘Do you go to New York a lot?’ he asked.

‘Fairly often. In the last year we’ve been out in the Far East most of the time. That’s where the fastest growing markets are.’

‘What about the red mercury? Do you think your boss plans to sell that out there?’

Su-ming put the paper she was holding onto the stack. ‘It’s a possibility,’ she said. ‘Why?’

‘It’s for making bombs, you said?’

She put her hands together, like a child about to say its prayers. ‘That’s one of its uses, yes. It can be used for lots of other things, too.’

‘What you didn’t tell me was that it’s used in nuclear bombs.’

If Su-ming was surprised at Cramer’s newly acquired knowledge, she didn’t show it. ‘Red mercury isn’t a bomb. It’s a chemical. And it’s a chemical with many uses.’

‘Is it used in nuclear weapons, yes or no?’

‘The honest answer is that we don’t know. Nobody knows. Nobody has yet detonated a nuclear weapon containing red mercury.’

‘Yet?’

‘I mean ever. It’s never happened, maybe it never will.’

‘And what about those documents? What do they say?’

She waved her hand over the papers. ‘According to the section I’ve just been reading, it can be used to start up civilian nuclear reactors, nothing more sinister than that. And there’s a section describing a coating based on the substance which appears to make whatever you paint with it become virtually invisible to radar.’

Cramer went over to her. The coffee table was carved from a solid block of black and grey marble, more than capable of bearing his weight, so he sat down on it, facing her. He linked his fingers together and leaned towards her. ‘So Mr Vander Mayer just wants to kick-start nuclear reactors and help keep the friendly skies safe, is that it?’

‘Mr Vander Mayer is a businessman. He does what business he can.’

‘Tell me about the other uses for this stuff.’

Su-ming pulled a face as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. ‘I told you about the fuses. It can be used to detonate bombs. All sorts of bombs, not just nuclear. I don’t quite understand how, but it also makes nuclear bombs more effective.’ She patted the pile of papers beside her. ‘The chemistry is way beyond me, but it’s some sort of catalyst.’

‘And your boss will sell it to the highest bidder?’

‘Of course.’

‘Even if it’s to terrorists?’

‘Terrorists? No. Mr Vander Mayer wouldn’t deal with terrorists.’

‘Are you sure?’

She frowned as if she was considering his question, then nodded. ‘Yes. I’m sure.’

Cramer shook his head in amazement. He could scarcely comprehend what sort of life Vander Mayer must live, travelling the world selling instruments of death to anyone with the money to pay for them. ‘The sample that Tarlanov gave us. How is it made?’ he asked.

‘Why do you want to know?’

Cramer shrugged. ‘Just curious, I guess.’

Su-ming studied him for a while, then picked up the papers and riffled through them. She put her spectacles back on and looked at Cramer over the top of them. ‘It starts off as mercury antimony oxide.’ She studied the sheet of paper for a few seconds, her mouth working soundlessly. ‘Okay, it’s a ternary oxide with a cubic pyrochlore structure.’ She smiled up at him. ‘I’ve no idea what that means.’