Rules of Vengeance (24 page)

Next Baxter gridded out the area, assigning 20-by-20-meter squares to teams of five men each for examination. Every square inch of the site was photographed, and all debris was studied with an eye to determining whether it was or was not evidence. If so, it was marked, photographed again, catalogued, and bagged.

The ERT looked for two things in particular: elements of the bomb itself—namely a detonator, circuit board, mobile phone, and the like; and any materials coated with a residue of the explosives. A bomb’s architecture spoke volumes about the bomb maker: his training, education, and, most important, his country of origin. Ninety percent of terrorist devices were made by individuals with prior military experience, and many bomb makers (inadvertently) developed a signature that gave them away as surely as Picasso’s script at the bottom of his paintings.

Blast residue indicated the type of explosive used, and often where the explosive was manufactured, and even when. Determining whether a bomb utilized Semtex, C-4, or one of a dozen more arcane explosives was a crucial first step in tracking down the identity of the assailant.

“Boss!” A whistle from the interior of the van drew his attention.

Baxter arrived in record time. “You have a result?” he asked breathlessly.

“Semtex,” declared the technician. “From the home factory in Semtin.” Semtex was a common plastic explosive manufactured in Semtin, Czech Republic.

“Taggants in good condition?”

“Taggants” referred to chemical signatures placed in the explosives denoting the place and date of manufacture.

“Check. We sent them over to Interpol for analysis.”

“And?”

“The Semtex used in the bomb came from a shipment sold to the Italian army. Here’s where it gets interesting: the Italians reported the shipment hijacked en route to a military base outside Rome in late April.”

One of Interpol’s lesser-known responsibilities was to maintain an up-to-the-minute database of every batch of explosives manufactured from legitimate explosives concerns around the world and to keep track of where and to whom they were sold.

“How big was the shipment?”

“Five hundred kilos.”

“Ask Interpol if any of the same batch has shown up somewhere else. Oh, and good work.”

Baxter climbed out of the van and headed back up the street into the glare of the lights. The Semtex was just one piece of the puzzle. He’d need many more before he could begin to make heads or tails of the bomb and, more important, the bomber.

“Evidence,” he shouted to his men. “I want some bloody evidence!”

It was nearing midnight, and Den Baxter’s day was just beginning.

   It took Kate and Graves three hours, but finally they found her.

Her name was Isabelle Lauren, and she had studied at Balliol College, Oxford, from 1997 to 2000.

“Funny,” said Kate. “Robert Russell wasn’t even up at Oxford when she was there.”

“Was he teaching?”

“Not till 2001.”

Graves shrugged. “I suppose it doesn’t matter how they knew each other. Just that they did.”

“Mmm,” Kate agreed. “Still, I’m curious.”

Graves closed the university yearbook and rang up his assistant, giving him Isabelle Lauren’s name and requesting that all pertinent personal information be on his desk within thirty minutes, beginning with a current address and phone number. When he’d finished, he set the phone down and glanced up at Kate. “I suppose it’s too late for an apology,” he said.

“An apology for what?”

“For this morning. I’m sorry for barging in on you like that. I tend to get carried away.”

“Your manners need improvement, no doubt,” said Kate. “But that’s not what bothered me.”

“Oh? What was it, then?” Graves hurried to ask. “That I didn’t want to cooperate?”

How was it, she wondered, that someone so smart could be so damn stupid? The answer came to her at once. Men. The inferior species. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

The phone rang before Graves could answer. Motioning for her to give him a second, he picked it up. “What is it now?” Suddenly his face fell. “Oh, excuse me, Detective Watkins. I was expecting another call. Ransom? He did what? Good Lord!”

“What?” Kate put her head close to his, trying to listen, but Graves immediately walked away, nodding and grunting and mumbling “yes” over and over again. Finally he said, “I’m with DCI Kate Ford. It’s important that she hear what you have to say. I’m going to put you on speaker. Go ahead.”

“The woman’s name is Prudence Meadows,” explained a deep voice. “Jonathan Ransom shot and killed her husband two hours ago.”

Graves exchanged a glance with Kate that said he’d been right all along.

“There’s no question whatsoever,” Watkins continued. “Ransom and her husband were at university together years ago. The woman and her husband visited with him only last night at a reception at the Dorchester. According to Mrs. Meadows, Ransom came to the door of their home in Notting Hill at approximately nine-thirty. He demanded to speak to her husband. She said he looked agitated, but she let him in anyway. The two men retired upstairs for an hour. During that time she put her children to bed and then went to her bedroom to read. At ten forty-five she heard raised voices coming from downstairs. She went to see what was going on and found Ransom holding a gun on her husband, shouting that he wanted money and the keys to his car. Dr. Meadows refused. An altercation ensued, and Ransom shot the man dead.”

“Go on,” said Graves. “Then what did Ransom do?”

“Mrs. Meadows tried to call the police and he put a dagger through her hand into the table to stop her.”

“Didn’t he try to kill her, too?” asked Kate, staring hard at Graves.

“No. Just left her like that, then took the keys to the car and fled.”

Kate shot Graves a perplexed look. “Can we speak with Mrs. Meadows?” she said.

“Not right yet,” responded Watkins. “She’s in surgery for the hand. You can have a go at her tomorrow morning.”

“Right,” said Graves. “Anything on the car Ransom stole?”

“Not yet, but we’re looking.”

“Cover all the airports and the ports along the coast.”

“Already done.”

“Of course it is. Thank you again for getting in touch so promptly.” Graves hung up. He raised a hand to stop Kate before she could begin. “I know what you’re going to say. If Ransom killed the husband, why did he leave the woman alive?”

“It must have been an accident. He’s not a killer.”

“You keep saying that, and the people around him keep dying.”

The phone rang again. It was Roberts, who stated that Mrs. Isabelle Lauren’s primary residence was in the city of Hull, in the northeast of England. Graves requested that an aircraft be made ready and told Kate to meet him early the next morning at Thames House for a briefing prior to departure.

As she walked to the door, he called, “You never did tell me what bothered you so much.”

Kate looked over her shoulder. “You really want to know?”

“Couldn’t sleep if I didn’t.”

“What bothered me, Colonel Graves—”

“Call me Charles.”

“What bothered me, Charles, wasn’t that you came into my home unannounced and took it upon yourself to march into my kitchen.”

Graves set his hands on his hips. “What the hell was it then, DCI Ford?”

“Kate.”

“Okay… Kate.”

“I saw your Rover yesterday morning at One Park. What really pissed me off was that you arrived before I did, and you didn’t tell me. It was my crime scene. I don’t like to be second to anyone.”

   The Peninsular and Orient ferry
Princess of Kent
, 179 meters in length, 40 meters from sea to smokestack, and 33 in width, with a draft of 22,000 tons and capable of carrying 500 automobiles or 180 trucks, along with 2,000 paying passengers, sat moored at the dock of the Dover-Calais terminal, ready to commence boarding in twelve minutes and thirty-seven seconds, as noted by the enormous digital clock arrayed on the neighboring warehouse. It was 6 a.m. The sun had come up a half-hour ago, and though the temperature was no more than seventy-five degrees, there wasn’t a lick of wind, and it was already uncomfortably humid.

Jonathan snaked through the idling trucks. Drivers milled outside their cabs, smoking, exchanging trade tips with one another, or just stretching their bones. He was studying the size of the cabs, the addresses of their owners (usually noted on the driver’s door), as well as the rigs’ home country plates. As important, he was determining whether the driver was at the wheel waiting to guide his rig aboard the ferry or somewhere en route to or from the ticket office.

He eyed a Peterbilt cab belonging to the freight forwarder Danzas and piloted by a M. Voorhuis of Rotterdam, Holland. The cab would be perfect, offering ample room to hide a fugitive eager to reach the European continent. Better yet, it belonged to an established freight company. Customs and immigration checks were carried out upon landing in France. Inspection was supposedly random, but he knew that vehicles registered to the established companies were rarely selected.

A man he assumed to be Voorhuis stood on the running board, smoking. Next to him, resting her head on his shoulder, was a frizzyhaired woman, all jeans, black leather, and skull rings. But Rotterdam wasn’t any good, and three was definitely a crowd.

Eleven minutes.

A Volvo FH16 carrying a Cat backhoe out of Basel, Switzerland, gave Jonathan momentary hope. The cab had a rest area behind the driver’s seat, and the Swiss plates meant free passage across borders. Even the driver looked okay, a middle-aged schoolboy wearing a silver cross around his neck. It was the biblical scripture airbrushed on his cab’s side panel that was the problem. If push came to shove, there would be no doubt that he would offer up a prayer and scream for the police. Besides, Switzerland wasn’t far enough south.

It was then that he saw it. Situated above the ticketing office stood a regulation highway-sized digital billboard, and on the billboard was a color photograph of Dr. Jonathan Ransom. A scroll running beneath the picture read, “Have you seen this man? His name is Dr. Jonathan Ransom and he is wanted for questioning in association with the London car bombing of 7/26. Ransom is six feet tall, approximately 180 pounds, and is thought to be armed. Do not attempt to approach him on your own. If you have any knowledge of his whereabouts, call…” A London number followed.

Despite the heat, Jonathan felt a chill along the back of his neck. All he had in the way of a disguise was a watchman’s cap to cover his graying hair and a pair of wraparound sunglasses. It wasn’t much, but for the moment, no one could match him to the man on the billboard. He stared at the picture of himself. It was the same photo used in the convention’s brochure. There was no longer any chance of bribing his way onto a truck. He’d have to sneak aboard.

The clock ticked down to ten minutes.

Ten minutes to find a way out of England.

Jonathan rubbed the sweat out of his eyes and kept moving.

The parking lot was a modern-day stockyard, with eighteen-wheelers and double-rig juggernauts taking the place of longhorn steers and grass-fed cattle. The random blare of an industrial-strength air horn was as disconcerting as the lowing of ten thousand frightened cattle, and the billowing exhaust every bit as noxious. If you couldn’t see the English Channel pressing down on three sides of the lot, you wouldn’t imagine that you were anywhere within a hundred miles of the sea.

Jonathan came to the end of a row and moved down the next. He’d left London at the wheel of Meadows’s Jag. He’d found the car around back, exactly as Jamie had said. It was a risk, but then everything was. He’d driven until three, then pulled off the motorway in Canterbury to rest, but he’d been too wired to sleep.

It had been five when he arrived at the ferry. After checking the morning’s schedule, he’d driven to the outskirts of town and parked on the fourth floor of a long-term garage. He’d even gone so far as to steal a tarp from a nearby Mercedes and throw it over the Jag.

Another horn sounded. Longer and louder. At the rear of the lot, a boom dropped, effectively prohibiting any further entrants. Jonathan stopped, leaning against a fender to scan the assembled armada of trucks. There were rigs from Germany, Belgium, France, Sweden, and Spain. Where was Italy?

Jonathan’s logic was straightforward, if problematic. Emma claimed to have been attacked in Rome. By the look of the scar, the wound had demanded immediate medical attention, if not a convalescence in the hospital. Somewhere there would be a record of her admittance. He was sure she hadn’t used her own name. He could rely on a picture and his own expertise in dealing with hospital administrators. That and something else.

His work provided one last arrow in his quiver. Years back, an Italian physician had joined the Doctors Without Borders mission in Eritrea on the horn of Africa for a three-month rotation. (This short stay was more the rule than the exception. Most doctors who gave their time to DWB did so temporarily. Stints normally lasted between three and six months.) The doctor’s name was Luca Lazio, and if Jonathan wasn’t mistaken, his practice had been near the Borghese Gardens in Rome.

There remained one small problem. Jonathan and Lazio hadn’t parted on the best of terms. In fact, a broken nose might have been involved somewhere along the line. But Lazio owed him. Of that, there was no doubt. Lazio owed him big.

Either it was Rome or it was nothing.

A shrill whistle followed the horn, and there was a thunderous, knee-shaking rumble as the drivers fired up their engines and shifted the drive trains into first gear. One by one, the rigs boarded the ferry, advancing up a wide black iron ramp and disappearing into a murky netherworld for the ninety-minute traverse.

Panicked, Jonathan began to jog through the rank of trucks.

And then he saw his chance.

On the rear flank, the driver of an Interfreight lorry was only now climbing down from his rig and rushing toward the ticket booth. He held a phone to his ear, and his red cheeks and vocal responses made it apparent he was engaged in a quarrel. Jonathan edged closer to the truck. He couldn’t see the plates yet, but it no longer mattered. Anywhere was safer than England. He rounded the back of a gleaming chrome monster hauling natural gas and pulled up. The driver had disappeared inside the ticket office. His cab sat 12 meters away. The morning sun reflected off the windscreen, making it impossible to ascertain whether or not someone was riding shotgun. It was then that he spotted the license plate. Black, rectangular, with seven white numerals following the prefix “MI.”