Stephen Leather - The Bombmaker

'You know better than that, Andrea,' said the man. 'It has to be in the centre. Surrounded by the explosive.'

'It'll work on top.'

'I know it will. But we'll get a bigger bang if the explosive is piled around it.'

'There's four thousand pounds of explosive here. How big a bang do you want?'

'I want to bring the house down, Andrea. Stack the bags around the briefcase. And keep them tight together. We wouldn't the bags to be blown out without detonating, would we? Or was that what you were trying to do?'

'And then what? Then you kill me, right?'

The man said nothing, but Green-eyes took a step forward and pointed at Andy. 'That's right, you bitch!' she shouted. 'It goes up and you with it!'

'So I've got nothing to lose, have I?' said Andy quietly. She reached behind her with her right hand and brought out the video recorder's remote control. She slowly raised it in the air so that they could all see it, her thumb moving over the on-off button. 'If I press this, the bomb goes off.'

– «»-«»-«»Captain Payne turned to Patsy. 'What is it? What the hell's she holding?' On the monitors, the green figure that was Andy had one arm held up high as if pointing at the ceiling.

Martin gripped Denham's arm so tightly that the older man winced. 'What's she doing, Liam? What's happening?'

'I don't know, Martin,' said Denham, peering at the monitors.

'Liam,' said Patsy. 'Could she have rigged the bomb?'

'It's possible. But how? What has she got there?'

Captain Payne turned to Hetherington, pushing up the sleeves of his sweat-shirt. 'If she means what she says, we have to go in now,' he said.

'Let's see what she's up to,' said Hetherington.

'We have less than an hour, whatever happens,' said Payne. 'I recommend that we go in now.'

– «»-«»-«»Captain Crosbie adjusted his body armour. 'Right, orders group,' he said, and the fifteen troopers gathered for the pre-action briefing. To an outsider the men might have appeared over-relaxed as they listened to their commanding officer. Several were sitting on desks, swinging their legs. Coop was sprawled in a chair, chewing gum noisily. The laid-back attitude was deceptive, Crosbie knew. The troopers were trained to a standard few men could ever hope to achieve and would do everything asked of them. They were used to being addressed as professionals and had earned the right to be treated as such.

'Two teams of seven,' said Crosbie. 'If we get the green light, we go in on two sides, simultaneously. Three stages. One. Lower the shaped charges. Two men on each frame. No messing – we only get one chance at it. Down and blow them. Stage two. Flash-bangs. Sandy and Coop take care of them. Throw in, minimum delay, then drop to avoid the flash. Everyone else goes in immediately afterwards. Four troopers are coming in through the front door, but they're not moving until they hear the flash-bangs.' He gestured at Chuckit, who was sitting in front of his laptop and talking on the phone. 'Hopefully we'll be getting real-time thermal images of the floor below, but we can't bank on getting them before we go in. What we do know is that we have four targets. Tango One and Tango Two are male. Tango Three and Tango Four are female. Tango Four is the bombmaker, but according to Intel she's working under duress. Having said that, all are to be regarded as hostile. We don't have time to separate the wheat from the chaff. Tangos One, Two and Three are armed. Handguns.'

Several of the troopers were cradling their Heckler amp; Kochs. Crosbie held up his own weapon, a Heckler amp; Koch MP5SD, the silenced model of the MP5. 'Down below us is a four-thousand-pound fertiliser bomb, and our first priority is to secure it. We're not sure what it looks like, but keep all fire well away from it. I'm told it's relatively stable, but no one really seems to know what effect a nine-millimetre bullet travelling at four hundred metres a second is going to have on it. I'd rather not find out, so pick your targets. Who's got MP5SDS?'

Half a dozen of the troopers raised their hands. Crosbie named the two teams, dividing the men with silenced weapons so that there were three in each team.

'MP5SDS lead the way,' he said. The silenced weapons had a much lower muzzle velocity, which Crosbie hoped would minimise the chance of a premature explosion if a stray bullet should hit the explosive. 'Coop, how are you getting on with the shaped charges?'

'One done. I'll have the other ready in ten minutes.'

Crosbie nodded. The framed charges were made of light wood which Coop had nailed into rectangles the size of the windows they intended to blow out. Around the edges of the frames was PE4 plastic explosive connected up with a continuous ring of Cordtex detonation cord, and at the top was a primer and a detonator. The charges would be detonated by wire, and if Coop had done his calculations correctly they would blow in the windows and the blinds, but with minimum damage to the interior of the office. It was a delicate balance. Too little and the blinds might still be in the way when the troopers went through the window; too much and the fertiliser bomb could be accidentally detonated.

– «»-«»-«»Andy held the remote control to the side, aiming it at the briefcase, as Green-eyes and the Wrestler moved to stand behind the man in the ski mask. 'I didn't just wire up the timer,' she said, her voice cracking under the tension. 'I wired up the remote, too.'

'Could she do that?' Green-eyes asked the man in the ski mask.

'You'd better believe it!' Andy shouted.

'What do you want, Andrea?' asked the man in the ski mask.

'What do you mean, what does she want?' shouted Green-eyes. 'It doesn't matter what she wants. We've got guns. We'll fucking well shoot her!'

The man said nothing. His eyes continued to bore into Andy's as if he were trying to see into her mind. She stared back, refusing to look away, refusing even to blink.

'You can't shoot me,' said Andy. 'Because no matter how good a shot you are, no matter where you shoot me, I'm still going to be able to press the button. Even if you kill me stone dead, my hand is still going to go into spasm. The bomb'll go off. You'll all die.'

Green-eyes glared at the man. 'Is that possible?'

The man kept staring at Andy. 'If she's wired it that way, yes. The thing of it is, has she?'

Andy swallowed. 'There's only one way to find out,' she said, her voice shaking. 'I'll press the button and we'll all die.'

She raised her hand above her head.

'No!' shouted Green-eyes. 'Don't!' She lowered her gun, but the man in the ski mask kept his levelled at Andy's chest.

– «»-«»-«»Captain Payne looked over at Patsy. 'I recommend we go in now. If she presses that button, everyone dies.'

Patsy bit her lower lip as she stared at the thermal images on the bank of monitors. 'Are you sure you can take them out without the bomb going off?' she asked.

Payne looked pained. 'I can't promise. But I can tell you that in hostage rescue rehearsals we get the hostage out alive ninety-six per cent of the time. So long as the woman doesn't panic and accidentally set it off, we should be okay. We'll drop down on two sides. Shaped charges to take out the windows, flash-bangs to disorientate them, then the troopers swing in. Four of my men will take out the main door. It should be over in seconds.'

Patsy exhaled through pursed lips. She looked at Hetherington and raised an eyebrow. He nodded, pulled out his mobile phone and tapped out a number. Neither of them had the ultimate authority to approve the storming of the building. Only one man could do that. Hetherington walked to the far end of the office and began talking urgently into the phone. Patsy fingered her crucifix.

Martin turned to Denham. 'They can't go in now,' he said.