Michael Robotham - The Wreckage

Satisfied, he returns to the table and opens the cardboard flaps of the box. He pulls out a canvas vest-a simple garment tailored to fit a man or a woman’s body. Thick shoulder straps hold the midsection in place.

“Do you know what this is?” he asks.

Nobody answers.

“This large disc just under the breast area is filled with three-millimeter steel balls. Behind that, next to the skin, is a compartment filled with C-4 plastic explosive. Two detonators, one on either side, are rigged to timing devices or can be triggered manually or via a text message from a mobile phone. When that happens the vest becomes a bomb, killing or maiming anyone within a hundred-foot radius.”

Syd looks like he might vomit.

The Courier tosses the vest towards him. “Here, try it on.”

“We’re not suicide bombers,” says Taj.

The Courier breathes loudly through his nose, as though smelling the odor of fear rising from their armpits. “So you’re not willing to die?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“What are you saying?”

“You didn’t say anything about suicide vests,” says Rafiq.

The Courier shows his teeth in something approximating a smile. At the same moment he slips a vest over his arms, buckling it in place.

“You only have to wear the vests until you get inside. After that, you place them near the dance floor under tables or next to the bar. Crowded areas.”

The Courier unfurls a map on the table, holding it down with broken bathroom tiles. On top he places the floorplan of a nightclub called Nirvana in Piccadilly, just off Regent Street. There are galleries on each of the three floors. The main dance area is on the ground level, while the loft level has a VIP area next to an open-air terrace. The basement has another dance area and bar.

“You park the van here,” he says, pointing to a loading area a block away. “You’ll be wearing the vests by then.”

“How do we get inside?” asks Taj. “Most nightclubs have metal detectors at the doors.”

The Courier produces a key from his pocket. “This is for a service entrance.” He points to the floorplan. “It takes you into a storage area used for liquor deliveries. One door leads to the bar. The other into a storeroom used by the cleaners. It’s dark. Noisy. Lights are flashing. On a good night they get a thousand people in Nirvana. Nobody is going to see you come out of the storeroom.”

“What about the CCTV?”

“You wear baseball caps. Keep your heads down. Once you’re inside you split up. Go to the toilet. Get a cubicle. Take off the vests. Once you plant them you leave as quickly as possible through the main door, without drawing attention. Don’t talk to each other. Don’t communicate at all.”

Syd raises his hand, as though in a classroom. “Who’s going to detonate them?”

“You’ll each have a mobile phone that has been programmed with the number. The explosions must be synchronized. Two early. One later. The vest on the ground floor must be detonated after the police and fire brigade arrive.” The Courier points at Taj. “You will detonate the last one.”

“Why me?”

“Because God is giving you an opportunity to prove yourself.”

Taj puts out his cigarette in an ashtray, mashing it methodically. His eyes go to the open box.

“What about the passports and tickets?”

“You’ll have them.”

“And the money?”

“Tomorrow.”

The two men size each other up, their eyes like sharpened sticks. Taj is talking before he thinks. “What if the vests go off accidentally?”

The Courier drops a vest at Taj’s feet and stamps down on it with his heel. Once… twice… three times. Then he picks it up and throws it to Taj, who catches it cautiously.

“If you are caught you must detonate the vests. I don’t care if you’re wearing them or not-it’s better to die than rot inside a British prison for the rest of your lives. It will be fast. You will not feel a thing.”

Daniela and Luca have been up all night, fueled by machine coffee and the scent of something big. Both of them feel like college kids pulling an all-nighter, their heads tipped tensely forward, checking facts, comparing figures, picking apart the details of hundreds of transactions.

Often the numbers pose more questions than they answer. Luca has to console and cajole Daniela, pushing her to keep going. She circles the desk, scribbling numbers and tapping a calculator. Luca stares at her in awe. “Whoever said accountants were boring?”

“Are you saying I’m boring?”

“No…”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’re brilliant, beautiful, intelligent, resourceful and amazing.”

“And boring?”

“You are the sexiest actuary to ever run a ruler over the numbers and I would happily look at your spreadsheet every day.”

“Was that so difficult?” she says.

They’re working at Keith Gooding’s desk while Ruiz dozes between two chairs. Holly and Joe are sleeping on sofas in the editor’s office. The night sky is giving way to a yellow glow, and shadows lengthen across rooftops. Ruiz groans and arches his back, swinging his feet to the floor. He rubs his eyes, adjusts his crotch and looks out at the dawn.

Daniela lets out a soft yelp of triumph. Another number has fallen into place. Ruiz glances at the Moleskine notebook in her hands and wonders how something so small and ordinary and seemingly innocuous could have caused such mayhem-the deaths, the violence, the secrecy.

Keith Gooding has arrived with decent coffee, pastries and juice. Shortly after nine, Daniela and Luca emerge from their huddle. They eat a little and freshen up, before pulling chairs into a rough circle.

Daniela begins. “You’re probably wondering about the notebook,” she says, holding up a double page. “These are codes.”

“Like account numbers?” asks Ruiz.

“Similar, but not quite the same,” she says. “See this one here: No. 2075. That code belongs to Banco Internacional de Nassau Ltd in the Bahamas. No. 20966 is an account opened by the Banque Assandra in the Cayman Islands.”

“So the codes are given to foreign banks?”

“Banks, companies, corporations, private individuals… They’re non-published.”

“What does that mean?”

“They’re secret, off the books. In essence they are ghost accounts with no paperwork, just a number. Clients can transfer funds or buy stock or swap derivatives, but nobody knows who they are and Mersey Fidelity keeps no central record of the trades. Only the number is ever mentioned in the transaction.”

Daniela turns her laptop to show Gooding. “Some of the biggest corporations in the UK have taken advantage of the scheme. Look at these names.”

The journalist whistles through his teeth. “How many accounts?”

“Thousands.”

“What did Mersey Fidelity get out of it?”

“Handling fees. It used a debit and credit system. Often the actual funds never left Syria or Jordan or Lebanon-they were just credited to the client’s account as a paper transaction.”

Daniela taps on the mouse. “With me so far?”

Everybody nods. She points and clicks. A new landscape of information unfolds before them.

“It’s a brilliant system for doing dubious deals. It launders money. Avoids tax. It hides income or the ownership of assets…” Daniela points to a page of the notebook. “Look at this. There are twenty-three Colombian accounts, thirty-two from Syria, eighteen from Afghanistan and more than a hundred from Russia, but there are just as many from the US, Germany, France, Britain… Anybody could use the system, from legitimate corporations to crime gangs or drug cartels-there’s no way of knowing who owns the accounts.” Daniela calls up another list of accounts. “We looked at Syria and found twenty-eight ghost accounts linked to the same banks that secretly channeled money to Saddam Hussein. This time the transfers went the other way. Forty-six in the past three years.”