Stella Rimington - At Risk

Liz was about to answer when her phone bleeped. The text message indicated a waiting e-mail from Investigations.

Price-Lascelles still n/a in Morocco but have identified and contacted one Maureen Cahill, formerly matron at Garth Hse. MC claims D’Aubigny’s closest friend Megan Davies, expelled from GH at age 16 after various drug-related incidents. MC says she treated D’Aubigny & MD in school infirmary after psilocybin (magic mushroom) overdose. According to school records Davies family (parents John and Dawn) lived near Gedney Hill, Lincs, but house has had several changes of occupants since, and no current record of Davies family whereabouts. Do we follow up?

Liz stared at the screen for a moment, and then printed out the message. That final sentence suggested that she was clutching at straws, but in truth it was all she had to go on. If there was any chance, however slim, of saving lives by ordering an investigation into the whereabouts of the Davies family, then she had to take it. That this investigation would be manpower-intensive did not have to be spelled out. Davies was a very common name indeed.

Go for it, Liz typed out. Use everything. Find them.

She looked outside. The rain was pounding remorselessly down. Dark was falling.

Again,” said Faraj.

“When we get to the pub I ask to leave my coat in the car. I leave the bag, too-under the coat-in case they’re running bag checks on the pub door. I persuade him to stay at the pub for as long as possible, preferably till closing time, and then take me back to the house. When it’s time to leave the pub, I set the timer to one hour, turning the red button all the way to the right. In the car I drop some coins, and squeeze round to the back seat to retrieve them. While I’m down there, I stuff the backpack under the passenger seat. When we get back to his house, I stay for ten minutes maximum, perhaps arranging to meet him tomorrow, and then I leave. I walk back around the cricket ground by the road, and knock six times on the door to this pavilion. We then have an estimated thirty-five minutes to get away.”

“Good. Remember that he must not take the car out of the garage once he has returned there. That’s why I want you to return as late as possible. If there seems to be any possibility of him or any other member of the family taking the car out again, you must prevent him. Either steal his car keys or disable the car. If you cannot do these things, then take the backpack into the house with you and hide the bomb somewhere there.”

“Got it.”

“Good. Put the backpack on.”

They had prepared this earlier, when there was still light. He had wired up the C4 device-a fairly straightforward job, necessitating a single small screwdriver and pliers-and together with its digital timer and electronic detonator this was now enclosed in an aluminium casing. At one end of the casing was the red timer-activator button, and protruding from the other a stubby inch-long aerial. If necessary, the timer could be over-ridden and the device remotely detonated by a matchbox-sized transmitter which was zipped into the inside breast pocket of Faraj’s mountain jacket. The maximum range for remote detonation was four hundred yards, however, and it went without saying that if either of them was that close when the device went off, things would have gone badly wrong.

Rolling up the casing in the muddy jeans she had taken off that morning, Jean had tucked it at the bottom of the backpack. It had been decided that there was no point in trying to disguise the device. It was light, less than two pounds in weight, but the volume of explosive was too great to fit inside a camera or radio or anything else that she was likely to be carrying. Besides, there was no reason to suppose that she was going to be searched. She had stuffed a dirty T-shirt and her make-up bag on top of the jeans, and zipped up. Now she folded her waterproof jacket through the backpack’s strap, so that it hung in front of her.

He squinted at her shadowy form. “Are you ready to do this thing, Asimat?”

“I’m ready,” she said calmly.

He took her hand. “We will succeed, and we will escape. At the hour of vengeance we will be miles away.”

She smiled. An impossible calm seemed to have settled over her. “I know that,” she said.

“And I know that what you are doing is not easy. That talking to this young man will not be easy. You must be strong.”

“I am strong, Faraj.”

He nodded, holding on to her hand in the darkness. Outside, the wind scoured the pavilion and the dark, wet trees.

“It’s time,” he said.

Denzil Parrish had no desire to conform to the unhygienic science student stereotype, and had prepared himself carefully. After a half-hour session in which he had exhaustively bathed, shampooed and shaved himself, he had dressed from head to foot in clean clothing. Encounters like today’s were once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, and he was determined not to squander this one. The woman had appeared as if from outer space-cool, chic and confident. He didn’t know her name, he didn’t know where she was staying… He knew nothing about her.

Was she attractive? Yes, there was a self-possession about her which was definitely attractive. She had one of those faces that you couldn’t immediately summon up. Wide-set eyes and cheekbones, and an oblique-set mouth. A strange sense of urgency about her, as if her thoughts were elsewhere.

“You look very smart, all of a sudden,” said his stepfather, carrying an early-evening beer from the kitchen into the sitting room. For security reasons Colin Delves changed into and out of his RAF uniform at Marwell, and now he was wearing jeans, loafers and the tan leather jacket he habitually wore to drive to and from the base. Despite his casual clothes, however, a palpable air of tension surrounded him.

“And you look a bit knackered,” said Denzil. “Are the Yanks pushing you too hard?”

“It’s been a long day,” said Delves, settling into an armchair opposite the television. “There’s been another big security alert. This time they think terrorists might have targeted the base because of the Fighter Wing’s involvement in Afghanistan. So Clyde Greeley and I decided all off-base personnel should clear off home, me included, and let the security people lock the place down.”

“Is that for my ears only?” asked Denzil.

His stepfather shrugged. “Hard to keep it completely quiet, given that they’ve erected roadblocks around the base and moved three battalions of troops into the area.”

“So what’ll happen to them? The terrorists, I mean.”

“Well, they won’t get anywhere near the base, put it like that. What are you up to this p.m.?”

“Pub,” said Denzil, lowering himself on to the chintz-covered sofa. “Green Man.”

“Right. Shut those curtains, would you?”

The curtains, a worn yellow damask, hung in front of the tall front windows. Standing there, Denzil looked out for a moment at the dark expanse of the cricket field, the distant form of the pavilion against the trees, and the scattered, rain-blurred lights of the houses beyond. It was a good house, he thought, but it just happened to find itself in the middle of the deadest, most desolate patch of countryside in Britain. The security people were parked out there somewhere, he guessed, keeping a weather eye on the place.

Colin Delves’ parents came into the room, and looked about them with the bright, enquiring air of people requiring substantial alcoholic drinks. Buoyed with the secret knowledge of the evening ahead of him, Denzil took their orders himself, and in sympathy with his stepfather’s exhausted state, made a point of pouring them at least quintuple measures.