ear to hear better over the street noise. “Found what?”
“How the murderer got into Russell’s flat.”
“Tell me.”
“You’ll have to see it to believe it.”
“On my way.”
Kate hung up. And as she set off up the alley, she ventured a last look behind her. Her eyes rose to Cairncross’s second-floor office. The window had been closed, and though the sun reflected off it, she was able to make out the outline of a blond head with a very square jaw watching her intently.
And who the hell are you?
she asked the silent figure.
Chapter 11
The components sat on the floor of the garage, stacked neatly against the rear wall.
Twenty sticks of plastic explosive, bundled into packets of four, each packet weighing five kilos and thermowrapped in orange plasticene.
Two 15-kilo bags of four-inch carpenter’s nails.
Two 10-kilo bags of three-inch steel bolts.
Five 5-kilo bags of 00 buckshot.
Four 25-kilo sacks of Portland cement.
One reel of copper electrical wire.
One length of det cord manufactured by Bofors of Sweden measuring one meter.
One box of blasting caps. Ten count.
A can of stalignite gel, better known as napalm.
One cell phone (still in its factory packaging) and a SIM card carrying a stored value of twenty pounds.
Last but not least, the delivery device, recently detailed and sparkling beneath a raft of fluorescent lights, occupied the center of the garage.
A BMW had been chosen for the job. Expensive automobiles attracted less attention than cheap ones, and this one carried a sticker price of one hundred twenty thousand pounds, nearly two hundred thousand U.S. dollars when you included VAT. It was a brand-new 7-series, stratus gray with black leather interior, an elongated wheelbase, and conservative nineteen-inch rims. It was a car a diplomat might drive. A car that would look very much at home parked on the streets of Whitehall, the London district that was the site of many government offices.
One man stood in the garage, studying the automobile. He was wan and thin, dressed in a blue coverall. Except for his hands, he was unremarkable in every way. The left hand had only three fingers, the pinkie and ring finger lost to a faulty detonator. The right hand, though intact, was webbed with scar tissue and grotesque. When ignited, white phosphorus fuses with human flesh and cannot be extinguished with water. They were a bombmaker’s hands.
He, too, had been smuggled into the country, though the route was less circuitous than that of the stolen BMW. He had come from Calais, France, spirited across the English Channel in a high-speed Cigarette motorboat and landed on a beach in Dover twenty-four hours earlier. After constructing the bomb, he would return to the same beach for the outward leg of his journey, but whether he would go back to Calais or elsewhere was unknown. Men like him did not publish their itineraries.
He had no name. He was known simply by his trade.
The Mechanic
.
The Mechanic circled the car, running a hand over the hood, the roof, and the trunk. Every explosive device was different and had to be constructed according to its specific purpose. To bring down a building required five hundred kilos or more of high explosives and the ability to gain close proximity to the target. For that, a truck or van was best, as was the willingness to sacrifice one’s life. To maximize human casualties, fewer explosives were required, but more materiel, or shrapnel. Proximity was essential. Military-issue plastic explosives detonated at the rate of 8000 meters per second. The blast wave alone was capable of crushing a nearby automobile. At that velocity, a carpenter’s nail would travel a long and deadly distance.
The job he was entrusted with this evening fell somewhere between the two. It took him six hours to complete.
When he was finished, he surveyed the BMW with a former policeman’s eye. The vehicle appeared no different from before, which meant
“How the murderer got into Russell’s flat.”
“Tell me.”
“You’ll have to see it to believe it.”
“On my way.”
Kate hung up. And as she set off up the alley, she ventured a last look behind her. Her eyes rose to Cairncross’s second-floor office. The window had been closed, and though the sun reflected off it, she was able to make out the outline of a blond head with a very square jaw watching her intently.
And who the hell are you?
she asked the silent figure.
Chapter 11
The components sat on the floor of the garage, stacked neatly against the rear wall.
Twenty sticks of plastic explosive, bundled into packets of four, each packet weighing five kilos and thermowrapped in orange plasticene.
Two 15-kilo bags of four-inch carpenter’s nails.
Two 10-kilo bags of three-inch steel bolts.
Five 5-kilo bags of 00 buckshot.
Four 25-kilo sacks of Portland cement.
One reel of copper electrical wire.
One length of det cord manufactured by Bofors of Sweden measuring one meter.
One box of blasting caps. Ten count.
A can of stalignite gel, better known as napalm.
One cell phone (still in its factory packaging) and a SIM card carrying a stored value of twenty pounds.
Last but not least, the delivery device, recently detailed and sparkling beneath a raft of fluorescent lights, occupied the center of the garage.
A BMW had been chosen for the job. Expensive automobiles attracted less attention than cheap ones, and this one carried a sticker price of one hundred twenty thousand pounds, nearly two hundred thousand U.S. dollars when you included VAT. It was a brand-new 7-series, stratus gray with black leather interior, an elongated wheelbase, and conservative nineteen-inch rims. It was a car a diplomat might drive. A car that would look very much at home parked on the streets of Whitehall, the London district that was the site of many government offices.
One man stood in the garage, studying the automobile. He was wan and thin, dressed in a blue coverall. Except for his hands, he was unremarkable in every way. The left hand had only three fingers, the pinkie and ring finger lost to a faulty detonator. The right hand, though intact, was webbed with scar tissue and grotesque. When ignited, white phosphorus fuses with human flesh and cannot be extinguished with water. They were a bombmaker’s hands.
He, too, had been smuggled into the country, though the route was less circuitous than that of the stolen BMW. He had come from Calais, France, spirited across the English Channel in a high-speed Cigarette motorboat and landed on a beach in Dover twenty-four hours earlier. After constructing the bomb, he would return to the same beach for the outward leg of his journey, but whether he would go back to Calais or elsewhere was unknown. Men like him did not publish their itineraries.
He had no name. He was known simply by his trade.
The Mechanic
.
The Mechanic circled the car, running a hand over the hood, the roof, and the trunk. Every explosive device was different and had to be constructed according to its specific purpose. To bring down a building required five hundred kilos or more of high explosives and the ability to gain close proximity to the target. For that, a truck or van was best, as was the willingness to sacrifice one’s life. To maximize human casualties, fewer explosives were required, but more materiel, or shrapnel. Proximity was essential. Military-issue plastic explosives detonated at the rate of 8000 meters per second. The blast wave alone was capable of crushing a nearby automobile. At that velocity, a carpenter’s nail would travel a long and deadly distance.
The job he was entrusted with this evening fell somewhere between the two. It took him six hours to complete.
When he was finished, he surveyed the BMW with a former policeman’s eye. The vehicle appeared no different from before, which meant
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