Stephen Leather - The Bombmaker

Quinn shook his head.

'Well, I can tell you from the horse's mouth, bang doesn't come into it. Bang's what you get when you burst a balloon. Or fire a gun. Bombs don't go bang. Not big ones.'

'What sort of noise do bombs make, then?'

O'Keefe narrowed his eyes as he took a long pull on his cigarette. He exhaled a tight plume of smoke. 'Are you taking the piss?' he said.

– «»-«»-«»The Mercedes swept up the driveway and parked in front of the two-storey house. Two men in dark suits walked up to the car, nodded when they saw who was inside, then walked back to their post by the front door. Deng sat where he was until his bodyguard had climbed out of the car and opened the door for him. He stood for a moment to admire the view of Hong Kong harbour far below him. Some of the most expensive real estate in the world towered over the narrow strip of water between the island and the mainland of Kowloon. Deng turned back to the house. It had once been the home of one of the richest taipans in Hong Kong, a man whose family had made their fortune running opium into China and who had left the day before the colony was handed back to its rightful masters, vowing never to return. Now it was the property of the People's Liberation Army.

Deng climbed the stairs to the verandah and walked across it and into the house, his Bally shoes squeaking across the polished oak floors. The general was in the taipan's study, the walls still bedecked with the books he'd left behind, bought by the yard and never read. A wooden-bladed fan spun silently above the general's head as he stared out of a picture window that gave him an unobstructed view of Kowloon. In Cantonese, Kowloon was Nine Dragons, signifying the hills that surrounded the peninsula. In fact there were only eight hills – the ninth dragon represented a warlord who'd visited the area hundreds of years earlier. 'What is this place called?' he'd asked.

'Nine dragons,' he was told.

The warlord counted the hills. 'But there are only eight,' he said.

'Until you arrived, sire,' he was told. 'Now there are nine dragons.'

Flattery could be a dangerous thing, Deng knew. It was flattery that had got him into his present predicament. He'd believed everything he'd been told, and now he stood to lose millions of dollars. And more. His life was on the line. His life and the life of his family.

Behind the general's wheelchair stood a Chinese nurse in a starched white uniform, her hair hanging down to the middle of her back like a black veil. Deng walked to stand in front of the general. The old man was pressing an oxygen mask up against his face with one hand. He waved his free hand, indicating that Deng should sit down on a leather winged chair at the side of the window.

The general wheezed heavily, and the nurse stepped forward and adjusted the valve on the oxygen cylinder. The old man gulped several times, and then his breathing steadied. 'I have to go to London soon,' he croaked. 'My doctor

'I understand,' said Deng.

'The air here. It's not good at this time of year.'

Deng nodded. 'It would not be a good idea for you to be in London when…' He left the sentence unfinished.

The general looked at him with watery eyes. 'How long?'

'A week. Seven days.'

'And the money?'

Deng pushed his spectacles up his nose. 'We would anticipate receiving payment a month after the… incident.'

The general began to cough, then he cleared his throat noisily. He took the plastic mask away from his face, leaned to the side and spat noisily into a brass tureen at the side of his chair. Greenish phlegm dribbled down his trembling chin and the nurse rushed forward to dab it with a tissue. Deng averted his eyes, embarrassed by the man's infirmity.

'Will he wait?' wheezed the general eventually.

'I assume so,' said Deng. 'It is the only chance he has of getting his money back. It is the only chance any of us has.'

Deng heard footsteps behind him. A man in a dark suit, not one of the guards at the front of the house, walked across the study and emptied a sack in front of the general. Deng grimaced as a dead dog flopped out on to the floor. A spaniel, the fur on its chest matted with blood. 'My daughter's dog,' said the general.

'A warning,' said Deng.

'My daughter's dog,' repeated the old man. He gestured with his chin at the dead animal, and the bodyguard picked it up by one of its back legs and put it back in the sack. 'He is an evil man, that Michael Wong.'

Deng nodded.

'We should never have done business with him,' said the general. He began to cough again and his chest shuddered. The nurse bent over him but the general waved her away impatiently.

Deng didn't react to the criticism. It had been his idea to bring in Wong as an investor, but what was done was done. It was too late for regrets – the only way out of their predicament was to get Wong's money back. And for that they needed Egan, the American. Only he could save their lives. Their lives and the lives of their families. If they failed, Michael Wong's vengeance would carry far and wide. The general's daughter's dog was just a sign of how far the ripples would spread.

– «»-«»-«»McCracken's mobile rang. It was Egan. 'Everything okay?' he asked.

McCracken walked to the far end of the factory area, away from where Andrea was sitting. 'No problems,' she said.

'I'm five minutes away. Make sure she's out of the way, will you?' The line went dead. Like all of Egan's phone calls it was short, to the point, and unidentifiable. He never used names and always spoke in the vaguest terms possible.

McCracken went back over to Andrea. 'Right, you can stay in the office until the boys get back,' she said. 'Take a coffee with you if you want. And there's doughnuts over there.'

'I'm not hungry.'

'Suit yourself.'

Andrea stood up. 'Why are you doing this?'

McCracken said nothing. She pointed to the offices. 'Keep the door closed until I come and get you.'

Andrea did as she was told. McCracken took off her ski mask and rubbed her face. She made herself a cup of coffee, and as she sipped it she heard Egan's car pull up outside. He let himself in and nodded at her. 'Where is she?'

McCracken jerked a thumb at the offices. 'We've got her well trained,' she said. 'You want a coffee?'

Egan shook his head. He was wearing a black leather jacket over a grey crew-neck pullover and blue jeans and carrying his mobile phone in one hand and his car keys in the other. He looked like a used-car salesman on his day off, a short, well-built man with receding fair hair, cut short, almost army-style. McCracken studied him as he walked over to the table and picked up her notepad. One word came to mind when she thought of the man who was paying her wages. Bland. Pale blue eyes, fair hair, medium height, a squarish face with an average nose, no distinguishing features. If she closed her eyes, she could barely picture his face. Egan studied the list, nodding thoughtfully.

'It's okay?' McCracken asked, going over to join him.

'It's fine. Perfect.'

McCracken pulled off the rubber band that she used to hold her hair back when she had the ski mask on and shook it free. 'If you know what the ingredients are, why do we need her?' she asked.

Egan tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger. 'Need to know, Lydia, love. How are Quinn and O'Keefe getting on?' Egan's accent was mid-Atlantic. At times it sounded West Coast American, but generally his voice was as unremarkable as his physical appearance.

McCracken tilted her head to the side. 'O'Keefe's fine. Very professional. But Quinn…'

Egan put down the notepad and narrowed his eyes. 'What?'

McCracken winced under his gaze. She didn't want to badmouth Quinn, but he was the weakest member of the team and she wasn't sure how reliable he'd be under pressure. 'He's a bit… unfocused. Considering what we're expected to do. The next phase and all.'