Stephen Leather - The Bombmaker

Patsy shook. He had a firm, dry grip, though he didn't try to impress by crushing her fingers. He smiled openly, and Patsy couldn't help but noticing that four of his top front teeth seemed to be capped – they were slightly whiter than the rest of his teeth. 'Patsy Ellis,' she said. 'Glad to have you on board, Stuart.'

'His team are in the gymnasium,' said Hetherington, adjusting his cuffs. 'Unpacking their equipment.'

'We weren't sure what to bring so we've got everything but the kitchen sink,' said Payne. He had a Geordie accent which he'd obviously made an attempt to tone down over the years.

'And I'm afraid we're still none the wiser,' said Patsy.

Hetherington motioned with his hand that they should go back to his office, and they walked along the corridor together.

'We're reasonably certain that they're in the City,' said Patsy. 'We've identified one as a career criminal, an armed robber.'

Payne frowned and scratched the back of his head. 'I thought this was an IRA operation.'

'The bombmaker's IRA. But she's working under coercion.'

Hetherington opened the door to his office and ushered the two of them in. 'Her child's been kidnapped,' he said, taking his place behind the desk. 'They're threatening to kill the child unless she co-operates. We're assuming she's building a bomb for them. A big bomb. We're pursuing several lines of enquiry and, not to be too melodramatic, the clock is ticking. As soon as anything breaks, we'll have to move quickly.'

Payne nodded thoughtfully. 'So the bomb is already in the City? It's not in some sort of vehicle?'

'We don't know,' said Patsy. 'They've been using a van, but we think they've been using it to transport equipment. If I were to make a guess, I'd say they were assembling it in a building. But we're not in the guessing business. We're not ruling anything out at this stage.'

'Okay. So basically we'll have to play it by ear? No rehearsals?'

'I'm afraid not,' said Patsy.

Payne smiled broadly and winked. 'That's what we do best,' he said.

– «»-«»-«»McCracken and Quinn picked up Egan at a service station on the M1 outside Luton. He climbed into the back of the Volvo. 'Everything okay?' he asked.

McCracken nodded. 'We're on schedule,' she said. 'Tomorrow afternoon.'

'Excellent,' said Egan. He settled back in the seat as Quinn drove back on to the motorway and accelerated towards Milton Keynes.

On Egan's instructions, they kept to just below seventy miles an hour, but it still took them less than half an hour to drive to the industrial estate. Egan got out and unlocked the main door, and Quinn drove the Volvo into the factory and parked next to the Transit van. McCracken climbed out while Quinn pulled the lever to unlock the boot.

After he'd closed the metal door, Egan opened the boot and looked down at the suitcase. It always amazed him how something so innocuous could do so much damage. Five cubic feet of chemicals at most, a few pence worth of electrical components, and yet it had the capacity to completely destroy the building they were in. Bigger bombs didn't look any more threatening. The bomb that destroyed the Federal Building in Oklahoma, killing hundreds of US government officials, would have fitted comfortably into the back of the Transit. The one that had devastated the centre of Nairobi wasn't much bigger. Egan put on a pair of medical gloves.

McCracken opened the back of the Transit while Egan carefully lifted the suitcase out of the boot. He carried it over to the van and slid it along the metal floor. Quinn came up behind him. 'Shall I put the Volvo outside?' he asked.

Egan shook his head. 'Get the petrol and douse the offices, yeah?'

Quinn went over to a stack of red petrol cans and picked up two of them. McCracken watched as Egan opened the suitcase. He eased aside the plastic bags to expose the digital clock. 'Why the gloves?' she asked. 'It's all going to go up in flames anyway.'

Egan looked over his shoulder. 'They can get partial prints off anything these days, Lydia.'

'Even after an explosion?'

'Sure. Off the smallest fragment. DNA, too. A few skin cells or a piece of hair. That's why the authorities spend such a long time collecting all the residue after an explosion. They'll be all over the place once it goes off. The only prints I want them to find are the woman's.' He checked his Rolex and compared it to the digital read-out on the bomb's timer. Exact to the second. 'Right, show me what to do,' he said.

McCracken talked him through the setting of the alarm, then he pressed the button to activate it.

'Okay,' he said. 'Five minutes.' He could feel his heart pounding and he smiled to himself. Nothing had changed, not really. The bomb was the same as when he had lifted it out of the boot of the Volvo. Individually, the components were exactly as they had been all day. But his body recognised what his mind was trying to ignore. By pressing the alarm button he'd irrevocably changed the nature of the beast. Now it was live. Now it had the power of life and death. He shut the suitcase lid and closed the rear door of the van.

'Better get the Volvo out before the fumes get any worse,' he said. He pulled the chain to open the door for her. McCracken got into the car and reversed it out through the doorway.

Over by the offices, Quinn threw down the two petrol cans and went over to the stack for two more. The smell of petrol wafted over from the offices. 'All of it, Mark!' Egan called. 'We want the whole place to go up.'

He went over to help Quinn, and together they doused the offices with petrol, then McCracken poured more of the fuel along the sides of the factory. Egan looked at his watch again. A little over four minutes. Plenty of time, though he could feel the adrenaline pumping through his system. The fright, fight and flight response. But Egan was well used to suppressing his body's automatic reactions, and he calmly closed the rear doors of the Transit.

He walked over to where Quinn was slopping petrol around the corridor between the plasterboard offices. 'Nearly done,' said Quinn. Egan took his automatic out of his jacket pocket and slammed the butt against the back of Quinn's head. The man fell without a sound, and Egan deftly caught the petrol can before it hit the ground. He hefted the unconscious man over his shoulder and carried him and the half-empty can of petrol over to the Transit. He put Quinn in the driver's seat, then poured the rest of the petrol over him before looking at his Rolex again. Two minutes. Time to go.

He walked quickly across the factory area, pulled the chain down to close the metal shutter, then left by the pedestrian doorway, closing the door behind him.

McCracken was gunning the engine of the Volvo. 'You're cutting it close,' she said.

'Ninety seconds,' he said, pulling open the passenger door and climbing in. 'Anyway, we want to see if it goes up.'

She looked at him expectantly. 'Where's Mark?'

'Mark's not coming with us,' said Egan, taking off his gloves.

'What?'

Egan pointed ahead. 'Lydia, I think if we're going to discuss this, we should be doing it while we're on the move. Don't you?'

McCracken looked back at the factory unit as if reluctant to leave.

'Eighty seconds,' said Egan.

McCracken put the Volvo in gear and drove off. Egan looked around casually, checking to see if they were being observed, but the industrial estate's pavements were deserted. It wasn't a place where people walked around. Almost all the men and women who worked on the estate drove in. McCracken drove quickly out of the estate and on to the main road to Milton Keynes. The road curved back along the estate, giving them a clear view of the factory units.

'What happened back there?' said McCracken, her eyes flicking between the traffic and the industrial estate on her right.