Stephen Leather - The Bombmaker

A man in a suit smiled down at her, wire-framed spectacles perched on the end of his nose. 'Mrs O'Mara?'

She frowned. The illicit bank account sprang to mind, and she felt herself blush.

The man looked at a clipboard he was carrying, then smiled again. He had even white teeth, she noticed, not a filling in his mouth. Mrs O'Mara's own teeth betrayed a childhood of sweets and adult years filled with smoking and coffee-drinking. She self-consciously put her hand up to cover her mouth as she returned his smile.

'My name's Peter Cordingly,' he said. 'I'm with Dublin City social services.'

He had an Irish accent, but it wasn't local. It was as if he'd spent some time away from Ireland, smoothing out the peaks and troughs so that his accent was somehow vague and hard to pin down. A bit like the man himself, thought Mrs O'Mara. He was a pleasant enough chap, but not particularly good-looking, with a bland, squarish face, and apart from the glasses he didn't have any distinguishing features.

'I understand you've expressed concerns about one of the children at your school.' He looked at the clipboard again, pushing the spectacles further up his nose with his index finger. 'Katie Hayes?'

'Oh, I only called her father. She was away without permission and…'

The man held up a hand to silence her and leaned forward conspiratorially. 'Mrs O'Mara, could I come in and have a word with you about this?' He looked left and right as if he feared being overheard. 'What I have to say is a wee bit… confidential.'

'Oh my,' said Mrs O'Mara. She unhooked the security chain and pulled the door open, eager to hear what it was exactly that Mr Hayes had done, all thoughts about the dangers of strangers totally forgotten.

Andy woke up as the fluorescent lights flickered into life. She squinted over at the door to the office. The Wrestler stood there with a brown paper bag in one hand and a paper cup in the other. He put them down on the floor in the centre of the room. 'Breakfast,' he said. He'd taken off his shoulder holster.

Andy sat up and rubbed her eyes. 'Thank you,' she said.

'She wants you outside in fifteen minutes.'

'Okay.'

The Wrestler went out and closed the door behind him. Andy climbed out of the sleeping bag that Green-eyes had given her the previous evening. There was no pillow – she'd had to rest her head on a rolled-up pullover, and now she had a crick in her neck. She picked up the brown paper bag and opened it. There was a croissant inside, and a bran muffin. She sat with her back against the wall and ate them both in between sips of hot coffee. She was surprised at how hungry she was, but then realised that she hadn't eaten for almost thirty-six hours.

When Green-eyes had given her the sleeping bag, she'd shown Andy where the bathroom was, at the end of the corridor farthest from the factory area. All it contained was a washbasin and toilet, but it was better than nothing, and Green-eyes had told her she could use it whenever she wanted. There was one stipulation. Andy had to shout that she wanted to leave the office, to give her captors time to put on their ski masks if they weren't already wearing them.

Andy got her washbag out of her suitcase and banged on the office door. 'I want to go to the bathroom!' she shouted.

'Okay!' shouted Green-eyes, off in the distance. Andy opened the door and went along to the bathroom, had as good a wash as was possible in a sink, and brushed her teeth.

Green-eyes was waiting for her in the factory area, still wearing the blue overalls and ski mask. The Runner was loading the bags of ammonium nitrate into the back of the blue Transit van.

'Sleep well?' asked Green-eyes.

'Do you care?' said Andy.

'If it makes you feel any better, I slept on the floor too,' said Green-eyes. She nodded over at the far corner of the factory space. There were three rolled-up sleeping bags there, along with a couple of holdalls. The woman's pistol was on a small plastic table, along with the Wrestler's gun and holster.

'It doesn't,' said Andy.

'We'll be moving tomorrow anyway,' said Green-eyes.

'Where to?'

'You'll find out soon enough, Andrea.' Green-eyes pointed at the plastic chair on Andy's side of the table. 'Sit down.'

Andy did as she was told.

The Runner started loading the conifers into the back of the van, and then packed in the boxes of smaller plants.

'I want you to go through the list again,' Green-eyes said to Andy. 'Everything we'll need for a four-thousand-pound fertiliser bomb.'

'Don't you trust me?'

The green eyes stared at Andy through the holes in the ski mask.

Andy leaned forward. 'Or are you testing me, is that it? To check that I'm consistent?'

'Maybe I just want to make sure that you didn't forget anything,' said the woman. 'Deliberately or otherwise.'

'When can I see Katie?'

'You can't. She's still in Ireland.'

'Let me talk to her.'

'I can't do that.'

'I have to know that she's okay.'

'You have my word.'

Andy snorted. 'Why the hell should I believe anything you tell me?'

'If you ever want to see Katie again, you've no choice,' said the woman.

Andy glared at her. 'At least give me some sign that she's okay. A phone call. Anything.'

'A photograph in front of today's paper?' said Green-eyes, her voice loaded with sarcasm.

'Look, what you're asking me to do is complicated. Really complicated. And I'm going to find it impossible to concentrate if I'm worrying whether or not my daughter is alive. Doesn't that make sense to you?'

Green-eyes tilted her head to one side as she looked at Andy. 'Maybe you're right at that,' she said. 'I'll see what I can do. Now, let's go through the list.'

The Runner finished loading the Transit van. 'Oy, Don!' he yelled. Green-eyes stiffened. Andy pretended not to notice. 'Ammonium nitrate fertiliser,' she said. 'Ratio 34-0-0.'

The Wrestler came out of one of the offices and headed over to the metal door. He began to pull on the chain to open it and the Runner climbed into the driver's seat of the van.

'Aluminium powder. Pyro grade 400 mesh.' Andy fought to keep her voice steady. She brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes and smiled at the woman in the ski mask. 'Sawdust. Soap powder. Diesel oil.'

The van engine kicked into life. Green-eyes began to write on her pad. Andy forced herself to breathe. Had she managed to convince Green-eyes that she hadn't heard the Runner's slip? That she didn't know that the man built like a wrestler was called Don?

Andy kept talking. 'Three thousand two hundred pounds of fertiliser, six hundred pounds of aluminium powder.' Green-eyes pounds of sawdust and thirty pounds of soap powder.' Green-eyes continued to write as the Runner edged the van out of the factory. Andy stared at the pen as Green-eyes wrote. Did she know that Andy had heard the name? Was she pretending not to attach any significance to the slip so that Andy would think she was in the clear? Andy was trying to bluff Green-eyes; maybe Green-eyes was attempting a double bluff. One thing Andy knew for sure – if Green-eyes thought she'd caught the name, she was as good as dead. She continued to recite the list of components of the bomb, all the time staring at Green-eyes.

To her left, the metal door rattled down. She heard the Wrestler climb into the van and slam the door, then it drove away.

The woman looked up, her pen poised. Andy stared at her green eyes, wishing with all her heart that she could look inside the woman's mind and see for herself whether she was safe or whether her life had just been rendered forfeit by the mistake the Runner had made. Her mouth had gone suddenly dry, and when she swallowed she almost gagged.

– «»-«»-«»O'Keefe stuffed his ski mask into the glove compartment. 'I should fucking blow your brains out here and now,' he said.