Stephen Leather - The Bombmaker

Payne nodded. 'Do I need a suit?' he asked with a sly grin.

– «»-«»-«»Egan grabbed Andy by the hair and dragged her out of the office and along the corridor. McCracken followed him, holding the cellular phone which Andy had dropped. 'Find out who the fuck she was calling!' Egan shouted. He hauled her into the main office area, where O'Keefe was watching open-mouthed.

McCracken called up last number dialled and peered at it. 'Ireland,' she said. 'Dublin. She was calling her husband.'

Egan pulled Andy to the middle of the office and then let go of her hair. She flopped on to her side, snoring softly as if she were in a deep sleep. Egan drew back his foot and kicked her hard in the stomach. There was no reaction.

'What's happening?' asked O'Keefe.

'The bitch was on the phone,' said Egan. He turned to McCracken. 'Did she call anyone else?'

McCracken checked the mobile and shook her head. 'No. Just her husband.'

'Small mercies,' said Egan. 'What the hell was she doing with a phone anyway?'

'I don't know. It was in the briefcase. Locked.'

'Oh, that's all right, then,' said Egan, his voice loaded with sarcasm. 'I told you to watch her. I told you not to trust her.'

'I wasn't the only one here,' said McCracken. She flashed O'Keefe an angry look and he turned away, not wanting to be drawn into an argument.

'You were in charge, Lydia.' He knelt down by Andy's side and began slapping her face, trying to bring her round.

– «»-«»-«»David Bingham almost had to jog to keep up with Patsy as she walked through the reception area of Thames House. Directly behind her was the SAS captain and two of his troopers carrying kit-bags, and bringing up the rear were Denham and Martin.

There've only been three that come anywhere close to a four-thousand-pound device,' panted Bingham. 'The Baltic Exchange, Bishopsgate, and Canary Wharf. The Baltic Exchange bomb caused a third of a billion pounds of damage, Bishopsgate half a billion, and Canary Wharf a billion. The Canary Wharf bomb was one thousand pounds. All were detonated outside, so there was shrapnel damage over a wide area. If the bomb is detonated inside a building, it's confined to a smaller area but the damage will be greater. The building could come down. Depending on the direction of the blast, the building could fall vertically, which is what professional demolition firms try to do, or it could topple.'

They walked out of the building. Lined up in front of Thames House were a dozen large saloons, each with a driver. Patsy pointed to a black Rover. 'Liam, you and Martin take this one. Wait for Barbara and Tim – they'll be right down. Barbara knows where we'll be.'

Denham nodded, and he and Martin climbed into the Rover. Patsy, Bingham, the SAS captain and one of the troopers got into another Rover. The second trooper went over to Denham's Rover.

Patsy took the front seat. Bingham sat in the middle of the rear seat between the captain and the trooper and continued his briefing as the car accelerated eastwards, towards the financial district.

'Initial damage will be the blast and ancillary shrapnel created in the explosion. The extent of that is going to depend on what's in the bomb and what's in the office. Wood, metal, glass – it'll all get thrown through the air at hundreds of miles an hour. Every building within half a mile could be affected. Then there's the damage caused by the destruction of the building itself. The people I spoke to said it will probably be damaged beyond repair. The roads around would be wrecked, and we've got the Central Line running underground fairly close. If the Underground is damaged, God alone knows how much it would cost to repair. Then we've got damage to basic services – water and sewage pipes, gas supplies, electricity, telecoms. The cost is incalculable. Billions. Plus the loss of business to the City. If a bomb that size goes off, the City will effectively close down.'

Patsy fingered her crucifix as she stared straight ahead. 'Casualties?' she said.

'The building is twenty-four storeys high. If we estimate a hundred and fifty people working on each floor, that's three and a half thousand or so. And if the building comes down, that's not a survivable scenario. Add to that anyone walking around the vicinity, anyone standing next to a window within half a mile of the bomb. Commuters on the Underground. Thousands dead. As many again injured.'

He paused for breath. He was sweating profusely, and he loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt.

'Of course, if it goes off at night, there'll be far fewer casualties, but we're still talking about property damage on a scale we haven't seen since the Second World War.'

Patsy twisted around in her seat to look at Bingham. 'As soon as we've arrived, you contact the Met's Explosives Office and liaise with them. We'll need a team of explosives officers ready to go in as soon as the area's secured.'

'Do I tell them why?'

'No. That'll have to be done at a higher level. Just put them on alert and refer any queries to Jason Hetherington's office.'

Patsy turned back and took her mobile phone from her bag. She tapped out Hetherington's number.

– «»-«»-«»Egan stood up and sighed in exasperation. Andy lay unconscious at his feet, breathing heavily. Her blond hair was matted with blood where he'd hit her with his gun.

'Why don't we just shoot her now?' said McCracken. 'The bomb's ready. We could set the timers and she'll go up with it.' She was holding her gun at her side, her finger inside the trigger guard.

Egan nodded at the pistol. 'Be careful with that, Lydia. Let's not be hasty, yeah?' He looked at his watch. Andy had been unconscious for more than fifteen minutes. 'I want to know what she said to her husband. She might have told him to call the cops.'

'All the more reason to kill her now,' said O'Keefe.

Egan studied him with unblinking pale blue eyes. 'Who died and left you in charge, Don?'

O'Keefe stared back at Egan, unfazed. 'Security's been breached. We don't know who she spoke to or what she said. For all we know her husband could be on the phone to the police right now. We have to go.'

Egan shook his head. 'She made one call. To her husband in Dublin. We've still got her daughter – she's not going to endanger the kid.'

'She saw the videos,' said McCracken. 'Maybe she thinks her daughter's dead.'

'So let's find out,' said Egan. He went over to the water-cooler and pulled out the reservoir. He up-ended it, splashing water over his jeans, and carried it over to where Andy lay. He slowly poured the contents over her until she began to recover consciousness, coughing and spluttering and putting her hands up to try to ward off the torrent of water.

– «»-«»-«»Patsy climbed out of the car and looked up at the office block. 'Tenth floor,' said Bingham. 'Donovan, Scott and Associates.' The black Rover containing Denham and Martin pulled up behind them. The SAS captain and his' two troopers carried their kit-bags into the office foyer, and they all rode up in the elevator together.

Two MI5 agents were in reception, and one of them took them through to a large office where Hetherington was watching a team of half a dozen of the agency's surveillance experts unpack their equipment as he talked into a mobile phone.

The office was huge, about four times the size of Hetherington's own, wood-panelled with a massive oak desk at one end, two four-seater chesterfield sofas and an oak table with eight chairs around it. There were more than a dozen small watercolours on the walls, with small brass plates below them identifying the artist and subject, as if the occupant of the office feared that visitors wouldn't appreciate the value of the artwork.

The blinds were drawn and the lights were on.