The Bombmaker (39 page)

'Why?' asked Patsy.

'We can't just go through the windows because our guys will get tangled up in the blinds. We're going to have blow them in.

Shaped charges. And with a four-thousand-pound amfo bomb in there, that's going to be a tad . . . interesting.'

'We have visuals from Team A!' shouted one of the technicians.

There was a bank of eight monitors on the table. On two of them were thermal views similar to the one that Martin had seen through the binoculars.

Captain Payne tapped out a number on his mobile phone.

'Yeah, Crosbie? We have four tangos. Repeat, four tangos.'

Martin looked at Denham and frowned. 'Tangos?' he mouthed.

'Targets,' whispered Denham. 'Tango means target.'

The picture on one of the monitors began to swing from side to side. Martin could make out more desks, a mound of something in the middle of the office area, but no more green,

glowing figures.

'So far we have only four,' Payne said into his phone. 'Call me when you're in position.'

Payne clipped his phone to the belt of his jeans, then took off his leather jacket and hung it over the back of one of the chairs.

He was wearing a black nylon shoulder holster; in it was a large handgun.

'Team B's on-line,' said another technician. Two more monitors flickered into life. Martin could see the same four green figures, but from a different view.

'What are we going to do about sound?' Payne asked Patsy.

'We've got laser mikes up on the roof,' she said. 'Shouldn't be long.'

'Do you want our team to try through the ceiling?' asked Payne. 'We could push fibre optics through.'

Patsy shook her head. 'Let's see how we get on with the lasers.'

Payne nodded and went over to the thermal image binoculars.

One set was being connected up to a monitor.

Patsy peered at the monitors on the table. She pointed at a dark green mound in the centre of the office. Hetherington took his pince-nez spectacles out of the top pocket of his pinstriped suit and perched them on the end of his nose. 'That's it,' she said.

'A four-thousand-pound fertiliser bomb. Enough to blow the whole building to kingdom come.'

Captain Paul Crosbie dumped his kit-bag on the desk and surveyed the huge trading floor. All around him were hundreds of computers, their flickering screens full of financial information.

Telephones were ringing out, but apart from Crosbie and his men, the floor was deserted.

'Right, get geared up,' he shouted. 'Full O group in five.' He picked up a phone and tapped out a number. 'Stew? Yeah, it's Crosbie. We're in. I'll have Chuckit call you for the thermal imaging feed.' Crosbie read out the telephone number of the phone he was using and hung up.

'Chuckit!'

Brian 'Chuckit' Wilson, a tall, thin Scotsman with a shock of red hair, was opening up a laptop computer. 'Yes, boss?'

'Call Stuart Payne and arrange the feed for the thermal images.' He gave Chuckit a piece of paper with Payne's number on it.

Crosbie surveyed the troop. Including Chuckit there were fifteen men, but Chuckit would be tied up with the communication links. Normal operating procedure was for the troop to operate in four four-man teams, but on this occasion Crosbie had already decided to split the men into two groups.

The troopers were emptying out their holdalls and kit-bags and laying their equipment out on the floor. Black Nomex fire retardant suits, GPV 25 body armour, National Plastics AC 100 composite helmets, black flame-retardant gloves, respirators,

ankle-high boots and abseiling harnesses. One of the troopers, a burly Cornishman called Coop, was unpacking lengths of wood from a bag and leaning them against a desk.

Weapons were being assembled with practised ease and laid out next to piles of ammunition. Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine-guns,

Remington 870 pump-action grenades, Browning Hi-Power pistols and Haley and Weller E180 stun grenades.

It was enough fire-power to fight, and win, a small war.

The man grabbed Andy by the shirt collar and dragged her across the floor. 'Set the timer, Andrea,' he shouted. 'Finish the bomb or I'll blow your knee-cap off.'

He kicked her in the side and she grunted. She used the table leg to pull herself up and stared down at the open briefcase. The silver detonators lay on the Semtex, and around them the cluster of different-coloured wires. The timer was glowing, the digits all reading zero. Next to the timer were the batteries that she'd used to power the timer, and the four batteries she'd connected to the detonators.

'Do it,' said the man. He aimed the silenced gun at her left knee.

Andy sat down. She brushed her hair away from her eyes,

then picked up an elastic band and used it to tie her hair back into a ponytail. One by one, she pushed the detonators into the Semtex.

She checked all the connections, then looked up at the man with the gun. She sniffed and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. 'How long?' she asked. 'What do you want me to set it for?'

'One hour,' said the man. 'Sixty minutes.'

The receptionist looked up from a glossy magazine as Gordon Harris and Lisa Davies pushed open the double glass doors. 'Can I help you?' she asked in a nasal South London whine. She brushed a lock of dyed blond hair away from her eyes with a scarlet-varnished nail.

'Who's in charge?' asked Harris.

'You mean the office manager?' asked the receptionist, deep creases cleaving across her forehead as if Harris had set her an especially difficult mathematical problem to solve.

'Managing director. Whoever the top guy is.'

'She's a woman, actually,' said the receptionist. 'Miss Daley.'

Lisa grinned across at Harris but he ignored her.

'Could you tell her a Mr Harris would like to see her . . .'

'Oh, she'll be far too busy to see you,' interrupted the receptionist.

Harris held up a hand to silence her. 'Tell her it's regarding business security and if she's not in reception in thirty seconds we'll be coming in to get her.' Harris flashed her a cold smile and nodded at the telephone in front of her.

The receptionist dialled a four-digit extension number with another scarlet-painted nail.

Harris looked at his watch as the receptionist spoke to Miss Daley's secretary. It was taking up to eight minutes to clear each floor.

The receptionist put the phone down. 'She's coming out.'

'I'm so thrilled to hear that,' said Harris.

Harris and Lisa waited over by two overstuffed black leather sofas. 'You do have a way of winning friends and influencing people, don't you?' chided Lisa.

'We don't have time for niceties,' said Harris. He nodded in the receptionist's direction. 'If it was up to me, I'd let her go up with the building.'

The doors to the main office area hissed open electronically and a tall woman in a dark business suit strode out. Unlike the receptionist she had natural blond hair, tied up at the back, and she was model-pretty with high cheekbones and deep blue eyes.

Her cheeks were slightly flushed and she was clearly angry at the interruption, but Harris spoke quickly and earnestly, in a low whisper so that the receptionist couldn't overhear him.

When he'd finished explaining the situation, she asked if she could call her head office, but Harris shook his head. 'No outgoing calls,' he said firmly. 'Not to your head office, friends 323 STEPHEN LEATHER or relatives. Everyone must leave without saying a word to anyone outside the building.'

'For how long?' she asked.

'We don't know.'

'But this is a dealing room,' she said. 'We trade in millions every minute. You can't shut us down.'

'I'm afraid we can, Miss Daley,' said Lisa.

'But at least you can allow us to move to our emergency dealing room, can't you?'

'Where is that?' asked Harris.

'On the Isle of Dogs.'

'I don't see that that's a problem,' said Harris.

'But I'll have to get permission from head office,' said Miss Daley.

Harris shook his head.

'This is outrageous,' said Miss Daley.

Harris moved his face so that it was only inches from her face.

She stared back at him unflinchingly. 'What's outrageous, Miss Daley, is that we are having this conversation, when we could all end up dying here. We have only minutes to evacuate the entire building. It's not a drill, it's not a game, we're not doing this because we've nothing better to do. Now, you either do as you're told or I'll have you arrested and thrown into a vomit stained cell somewhere while we get someone else to clear your floor. Are we clear?'

'Crystal,' said Miss Daley quietly. 'But, Mr Harris, I'd like you to be aware that I'll be making an official complaint as soon as possible detailing your behaviour and attitude. Now, what do you need?'

'I need groups of ten to be brought into reception. How many staff do you have on this floor?'

'One hundred and twenty. Do we bring the women first?'

'No. A mix of men and women. But it mustn't look as if they're carrying all their belongings. Briefcases are okay, but this mustn't look like an evacuation. I don't want you to make a general announcement -- you're to quietly approach individuals.

Send them into reception in batches of ten. And make it clear,

no phone calls to the outside.'

Miss Daley nodded. She turned and walked back into the dealing room. Harris turned to Lisa. 'Why don't people just do as they're told?' he asked.

'You could try saying please,' said Lisa.

'Please? You heard her -- she was more concerned about money than about what might happen to the building. It's like those sad bitches who insist on going back into a burning building to rescue their handbags.'

Lisa smiled thinly at him. 'If I didn't know better, Gordon,

I'd suggest it was your wrong time of the month.'

Before Harris could reply the electronic doors hissed open and the first group of ten office workers began filing through into the reception area. A male MI5 agent already had one of the lift doors open and Harris shepherded them towards it, explaining that they were to go down to the carpark in the basement of the tower block and exit from there.

Patsy took her phone away from her mouth. 'Six floors clear so far,' she said to Hetherington.

Hetherington nodded his approval. He was watching the bank of monitors. There were now eight screens showing the thermal images. There were still only four figures,

glowing green in the shadowy background. One of the figures was bent at the waist, obviously sitting, while the three other figures stood around it. Captain Payne stood behind Hetherington, his eyes flicking from screen to screen.

Hetherington tapped the image of the seated figure on one of the screens. 'If I was a gambling man, I'd say that was Tango Four.'

Payne nodded. 'She's working on the timer.'

'Tango Four?' said Martin.

Hetherington turned, surprised at the interruption. He hadn't realised that Martin was there.

'Your wife,' said Hetherington.

'My wife has a name, Mr Hetherington,' said Martin. 'I'd be happier if you used it.'

'The tango designation makes identification easier,' said Captain Payne. 'We don't have time to memorise names.'

'My understanding is that tango means target,' said Martin.

'My wife is not a target. She's a victim. I don't want anyone referring to her as a target. She has a name. Andrea. Andrea Hayes.'

'You're quite right, Mr Hayes,' said Hetherington. 'Iapologise.'

Before he could say anything else, one of the technicians shouted over at them. 'We have sound.'

The technician tapped the keys on his laptop and then started flicking switches on a console. There were small loudspeakers on either side of the bank of monitors. There was a hissing sound,

then voices. The technician's ringers played across the keyboard again. The voices became clearer.

'How are you getting this?' asked Martin.

Patsy leaned across and put her mouth close to Martin's ear.

'Lasers,' she whispered. 'We bounce lasers off the windows to pick up the vibrations caused by sounds inside the building.'

The volume was increased, and suddenly Martin realised that it was Andy's voice he was listening to.

'. . . going to do? You can't go through with this.'

She sounded close to tears.

'Set it, Andrea.' A man's voice. An American accent. 'Sixty minutes.'

Patsy looked across at Hetherington. 'Sixty minutes,' she mouthed.

'Do it, Andrea. Do it or I'll put a bullet in your knee.'

Hetherington walked away from the monitors, pulling his mobile phone out of his jacket.

'We're going to have to move fast,' said Payne. 'An hour's no time at all.'

'We have to talk to the PM first,' said Patsy. <

'What's happening?' asked Martin, looking over at his shoulder at Hetherington, who was whispering into his phone,

a look of urgency etched into his features. 'What's going on?' He 326 THE BOMBMAKER was ignored. He stared at the bank of monitors as he realised for the first time what he was looking at. The man with the American accent was pointing a gun at his wife, and if she didn't do as she was told, he was going to shoot her.

Andy sat back and closed her eyes. 'It's done,' she said. The digital display showed 01.00.

'Take it over to the bags,' said the man in the ski mask,

gesturing with his handgun.

Andy stood up and lifted the briefcase. The man moved away from her as she carried it over to the pile of black garbage bags. She placed it on top of the pile and turned to face the man.

The Wrestler and Green-eyes were standing by the line of ovens, watching.

'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?'