The Rybinsk Deception (10 page)

‘Tell me this isn’t about what I think it is.’ Heather was beginning to understand.

‘Only one way to find out.’ He gave her back her shoe. ‘You and Hari wait outside down the hall.’

The Frenchman had been slower to understand. ‘You believe there is something dangerous in your refrigerator?’ he said.

‘Yep.’ As an additional precaution Coburn removed the plug from its socket.

‘And you can know this because of what you see on Miss Cameron’s shoe?’

‘There are two ways to rig a domestic fridge. You can either use a cord that pulls the pin on a grenade when someone opens the door, or you can use the door switch that turns on the inside light. All you have to do is replace the bulb with a couple of wires that are connected to a detonator and some plastic explosive.’

‘You have encountered these techniques before?’

Coburn nodded. ‘If you want to use the door switch method, it can be tough to unscrew the bulbs because the moisture in the fridge makes them corrode. The best way is to smash the glass then twist out the metal bit with a pair of pliers.’

Hari frowned. ‘So you think that while you are away you have been visited by someone who has failed to properly clear up the glass from the bulb he breaks.’

‘It’s a guess,’ Heather said. ‘It’s just another one of your guesses.’

‘Do what I said.’ Coburn wanted to get on with it. ‘Both of you. Go right to the end of the hall. Stay there for a couple of minutes before you come back.’

Hari remained where he was. ‘You do not have to do this,’ he said. ‘We can find another means – one that does not require you to remain in the room.’

‘I’ll be fine. Just take Heather and get out of here.’

She was equally reluctant to go, accompanying Hari to the door but glancing back at Coburn before she left the apartment.

As soon as he was alone, he started counting under his breath, imagining each of her footsteps until he judged she was sufficiently far away from any potential blast.

Keeping his hands as steady as he could, he dug his fingertips into the soft plastic seal around the door and very carefully eased it open.

The smell told him he didn’t have to worry about a hand grenade. The fridge was filled with the unmistakable and distinctive vapour signature of Semtex.

An innocuous-looking reddish-orange lump of the stuff was sitting on the top rack. It was the size of a half-pound pack of butter, armed with a detonator and wired to an adaptor that had been screwed into the socket where the bulb had been.

The set-up was exactly as he’d expected it to be. What he hadn’t bargained on was the quantity of explosive – not just enough to kill anyone who’d been standing in front of the door, but a charge so large that it would have destroyed the entire apartment.

The shock had taken a while to sink in, but now that it had done, it was acting as a trigger, forcing him to connect the present with the past in a way that until this moment had made no sense – a link he’d always known was there, but which had been too elusive and too disturbing for him to believe it ever could be true – an explanation for everything that had suddenly become unequivocally and frighteningly clear.

H
E
WAS STILL
struggling to come to terms with the truth and still staring into the fridge when Heather and Hari returned from the hall.

‘Ah.’ Hari came to see. ‘It is C4 plastic explosive?’

‘It’s Semtex. You can tell by the smell. C4’s a sort of off-white colour and it doesn’t smell much.’ Coburn shut the door. ‘I know what all this is about. I know the whole damn thing.’

‘You mean you know it is your friend the truck driver who has been here?’

‘Not just that. What I said – everything. I’ve got it all figured out.’

Heather didn’t believe him. ‘Nothing’s changed,’ she said, ‘well, nothing except for you throwing me across the room, and your fridge being booby-trapped.’

‘It’s not Armstrong.’ Coburn went to sit down. ‘It never has been. And it’s not the International Marine Bureau. I don’t think it’s O’Halloran either.’

She pulled up a chair for herself. ‘All right then,’ she said, ‘who is it?’

‘The US Government.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’ She frowned. ‘How can it be? Why on earth would the US Government be paying someone to kill you?’

‘Because you and I are in their way. Because they’re shit scared that sooner or later one of us is going to work out the real reason why the crew of the
Rybinsk
died of radiation sickness, and why those kids were run over at the beach.’

She still had a frown on her face. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Yes, you do. Think for a minute. The Americans had no idea you had a job at Fauzdarhat. They didn’t know you had a godfather who’d get in touch with the IMB, and they sure as hell weren’t expecting the IMB to send me to find you in Bangladesh.’

‘Are you saying all this started because of the
Rybinsk
?’

‘It all started because of Iraq. The US Administration knows they’ve dug themselves a hole they can’t get out of. They might be a superpower, but they haven’t got a friend left in the world. In Afghanistan they’re losing the battle against the Taliban. They’re worried sick about Iran. They’re making the Israeli–Palestinian problem worse, and they’re hated by every Muslim country you can think of. But the biggest problem they think they have isn’t any of those: it’s North Korea.’

The implications hadn’t passed Hari by. ‘You believe the American Government wishes to stop the covert development of nuclear weapons by North Korea?’

‘You can bet on it. The US doesn’t trust the Kim Jong regime, and they know damn well that if Pyongyang wants to carry on with its weapons programme, it’ll just be shifted underground where satellites can’t see it and no one’s going to find it.’

‘I see.’ Hari produced his lighter. ‘May I be permitted to smoke in your apartment?’

Coburn smiled. ‘Help yourself. There’s still beer in the fridge if you want one.’

‘For myself I prefer not to open the door. So you are suggesting that the Americans have decided to overcome their difficulties with North Korea in a clever way?’

Coburn nodded. ‘Washington knows the American public won’t stand for any more armed interventions, and the US Government won’t risk attacking North Korea by themselves because they can’t afford an international backlash that would damage their trade balance and maybe cut off their oil supplies. That’s why they had to come up with a better idea.’

Heather put her hands behind her head. ‘Which you’re saying is the
Rybinsk
.’

‘Not just the
Rybinsk
. This is a whole lot bigger than a ship arriving in Bangladesh with a sick crew. It’s one bloody great set-up on a world scale. It has been right from the beginning.’

‘To do what?’

‘Justify a pre-emptive strike at North Korea. The US Administration has launched a programme to get the American public on side and make other countries think that the Pyongyang Government is such a threat that unless someone does something, nuclear war’s just around the corner.’ Coburn paused. ‘We’ve uncovered the biggest and nastiest public relations exercise anyone’s ever tried to pull off – one that Washington’s not about to let me screw up for them.’

‘Well, aren’t you clever?’ In spite of her sarcasm, Heather was looking more thoughtful. ‘All this was written on a big sign inside your fridge, was it?’

Coburn grinned. ‘Don’t you want to know why the
Rybinsk
is the key?’

‘Not if you’re going to say it was the Americans who arranged to have that radioactive waste hidden on board.’

‘That’s exactly who it was. It all fits. If you were given the job of creating false information that’s going to convince a whole lot of ordinary Americans to support the idea of a US strike against North Korea, how would you go about it?’

‘I don’t know.’ She frowned. ‘I haven’t thought about it.’

‘I’ll tell you what you’d do. Step one: you get on a plane to Russia where you buy yourself a bunch of Kalashnikovs and some blackmarket nuclear waste. You crate everything up, stick on false labels addressed to Plant 38 and Bureau 39 in North Korea and hide the crates on board the
Rybinsk
before it sails from Vladivostok. Are you with me so far?’

She nodded.

‘OK. Step two: when the
Rybinsk
arrives at Fauzdarhat with its crew half-dead from radiation, you make a quick trip to Bangladesh and hire yourself a truck and some local bad guys to help you retrieve the nuclear stuff. On your drive down to the beach you stop beside the road and make an anonymous phone call to the army barracks in Chittagong to say that a truckful of armed men are heading for shipyard four.

‘Step three: you deliberately leave the guns behind along with a piece of label torn off the crate you’re taking away. After that it’s easy.
To make sure the
Rybinsk
hits headlines around the world, and that the international media pays attention, on your way back from the beach you get your men to kill all the soldiers who arrive, shoot as many shipyard workers as you can and run over a whole lot of innocent kids.’

By now Heather was ahead of him. ‘Step four,’ she said. ‘Arrange for the US Counter-Proliferation Centre to send someone to Fauzdarhat to investigate.’

‘Right. O’Halloran didn’t know it, but he was being used. Once he’d connected all the dots, he came up with exactly the answer the Americans wanted him to come up with. He had a poisoned crew, residual radiation from a missing crate and labels addressed to Plant 38 and Bureau 39. And if that didn’t give him the message about North Korea, he had guns, dead soldiers, dead shipyard workers and the children. Pity none of us realized the whole thing was a crock of shit. O’Halloran thought he’d cracked it, and you and I believed him.’

‘What about step five?’

Coburn hadn’t got that far. ‘Which is?’

She smiled at him. ‘Keep reminding people about what happened, and keep pumping up the story to feed public paranoia in the States. Then, when you’ve got all the mileage you can out of Bangladesh, do the same sort of thing in other places so it looks as though North Korea is buying arms from everywhere, selling arms to terrorists and getting more dangerous by the day. We know that’s happening because of all those news reports.’

‘Which is why I’ve got half a pound of Semtex sitting in my fridge. Every time Armstrong’s tried to find out something for me by asking questions in the wrong places, all he’s done is make Washington more nervous about me getting closer to the truth.’

Hari went to the sink and extinguished his cigarette. ‘Uncovering the truth does not make you safe,’ he said. ‘If you are right you must assume the Americans will try again to kill you.’

‘Not if I’m dead they won’t.’

‘You have the idea of setting off the Semtex so they will believe they have been successful?’

Coburn had already made the decision. ‘There’s only one way for us to get out of this,’ he said. ‘And there’s only one guy who can access the information to get us out.’

Heather stood up and left the table. ‘If you mean O’Halloran, you’re crazy,’ she said.

‘Who else are we going to ask? Don’t say your godfather.’

‘I wasn’t going to. If you’re thinking of going to the States to see O’Halloran, you’re mad.’

‘Why? If I can convince O’Halloran that he’s being manipulated by his own government, he might be pissed off enough to see if he can get some proof about what’s really going on. If he can do that, he can go public with it or, if we have to, we can.’

‘And you think that’ll stop Washington from carrying on with this sick plan of theirs, do you?’ She turned away.

‘It’s worth a try. At least it’ll get them off our backs.’

Hari had more immediate concerns. ‘Do not underestimate the Singapore authorities,’ he said. ‘For them to believe you have died in an explosion, first they will require a body. Had we known, we could have brought one with us from the
Selina
. But no matter. I shall return to the village to collect one, and deliver it to you here in the morning. We leave many bodies to rot in the swamp, so if the wild animals have not yet taken them, I shall be able to choose a size that will be suitable for your purposes.’

‘You don’t have to do that,’ Coburn said. ‘It’s a hell of a long way to go just to get a body.’

‘It is not a problem. If you would be kind enough to call a taxi for me, I shall at once visit the bar where each evening Lin conducts his business. From there he can drive me back to the
Selina
and also pick me up again tomorrow.’

With some reluctance Coburn went to use the phone, leaving Heather to start searching for food in the kitchen cupboards.

‘We need to eat,’ she said. ‘If there’s nothing here we’ll have to go out.’

‘No, no.’ Hari shook his head. ‘For the moment it is best you stay indoors. I think there is little danger, but in case I am wrong, you should look after this for me.’ He gave her his gun. ‘You are happier
now we understand the reason for everything that has been going on?’

‘No. No, I’m not. You’re both out of your minds. If the United Nations couldn’t stop the US from invading Iraq, why do you think anyone can stop them doing this?’

‘Different situation,’ Coburn said. ‘You stop this from the inside. That’s why we need O’Halloran.’

‘What if he already knows and agrees with what Washington is doing?’

‘Have you got a better idea?’

‘Yes. I’ve got a much better idea. For all anyone knows, you could have been shot when the village was attacked. Why don’t you just disappear and have a nice holiday somewhere?’ She tossed him a can of spaghetti. ‘If you want me to fix dinner, open that for me.’

If a holiday had been an option, Coburn would have taken it. But he knew it wasn’t close to being one. Exploiting the presence of the Semtex in his fridge would buy him time, he thought. But that in itself wouldn’t necessarily keep either of them safe for long.

While he waited for Hari’s taxi to arrive, he endeavoured to refine his plan, trying to convince himself that O’Halloran would listen and wondering what the hell he would do if the American proved to be uncooperative.

With so many other weak spots he had to somehow plug, he was no further ahead when he said goodbye to Hari at the door, remembering to ask the Frenchman to call in at an appliance store to buy a cheap electric timer, but nearly forgetting to thank him for all the trouble he was going to.

It wasn’t until they’d finished Heather’s spaghetti and she’d found them a can of peaches for dessert that he gave up searching for solutions and noticed how quiet she had become.

‘I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?’ she said.

‘Try.’

She smiled slightly. ‘I would if you weren’t such a complicated person. The minute I start thinking I’ve got to know you, something happens to make me realize I don’t. I’ve never met anyone like you before.’

‘Is that good or bad?’

‘Bad.’

‘You know more about me than I know about you.’ Coburn leaned back in his chair. ‘Are you going to tell me what you were doing in Darfur?’

‘I already did.’

‘You didn’t go there to drive food convoys, did you?’

She shook her head. ‘UNICEF kept sending medicine for the children in the refugee camps there, but none of it was getting through to them. I was supposed to find out why?’

‘Was the stuff going somewhere else?’

‘Mm, all over the place. The Janjaweed militia were controlling the distribution points. They were taking almost everything and selling it on to sick people who had the money to pay for it. About all they left behind was the white electrolyte powder that you mix with water to treat diarrhoea, and even that was being stolen by someone from the Sudanese Government who was using it to cut heroin – you know, ten per cent heroin, ninety percent electrolyte powder. I couldn’t fix the system, so I started driving distribution trucks – well, I did until I realized that most of the aid workers knew how to drive but none of them could handle a rifle.’

‘But you could, so you started riding shotgun for the convoys?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘I was good at it.’

‘This was before you were assigned to Fauzdarhat, was it?’

‘I told you that too. I was in Darfur while you were getting into trouble in Iraq. In between Darfur and Bangladesh I had an office job in Brussels and six months off in England.’

‘Which is where you’re going now.’ He waited for a reaction.

‘Back to England?’

‘If the American Government knows I’m here, they’ll have guessed you’re here too. While I’m seeing O’Halloran, you’re the one who has to disappear. I don’t want to be worrying about you while I’m away.’

She opened her mouth, but shut it again without saying anything.

‘Is there a place you can stay where you’d be hard to find? Would your godfather know of somewhere?’

She frowned. ‘What do I say if he asks about you?’

‘Tell him I’m dead. Just say there was an explosion in my apartment. You don’t have to explain. Pretend you don’t know anything.’

As though she was unwilling to continue with the conversation, she left the table and asked if she could use his shower.

‘Sure. I’ll show you where it is.’ He went to fetch her a towel, hoping she wasn’t about to retreat into one of her moods, but deciding that he didn’t much care anymore whether she did or not.