Patsy Ellis was sitting at the desk looking over a computer print-out when Liam Denham walked in. 'Good morning, Liam. Sleep well?'
Denham grunted. He'd arrived back in London in the early hours and had spent the rest of the night on a couch in an office on the floor above. Before catching a few hours' sleep he'd telephoned his wife and told her not to expect him home for several days. She'd accepted the news without complaint, though she'd made him promise to keep his cigarette intake to below one packet a day.
One of the three telephones on Patsy's desk rang and she picked up the receiver. She tapped her index finger against her lips as she listened. 'How do you spell that?' she said, picking up a pen and making a note on a pad in front of her. She stood up and banged down the phone. 'Briefing room,' she said. 'We've identified the driver.'
Denham heaved himself up out of his chair and followed her down the corridor. On the way she knocked on several doors and shouted that she wanted everyone in the briefing room. By the time she reached the door there were more than a dozen men and women following in her wake, like chicks in pursuit of a mother hen.
Patsy went over to the whiteboard on which were stuck the photographs of the members of Andrea's active service unit. 'Right, thanks to Chief Inspector Denham we now know who gave up Trevor. An IRA sniper, Micky Geraghty. Someone tortured and killed him several weeks ago, presumably for information about Trevor.'
She paused, then tapped the photograph taken from the video of the van leaving the Covent Garden carpark. 'Now, this where it gets really interesting. We've identified the driver of the van. One Mark Graham Quinn. An IC1 male, twenty four-year-old career criminal who has so far avoided prison but has been arrested several times on armed robbery charges. He's always walked, usually because witnesses have a habit of retracting confessions before he's due to appear in court. His prints match those on one of the parking receipts at the multistorey carpark in Covent Garden, and our technical boys have a decent match between the video pictures and photographs on file with the Met. Quinn's our boy. His police file will be with us within the hour. We still don't know who the passenger is, but computer enhancement has shown a tattoo on his left forearm. A lion leaping over a cross of St George.'
There were murmurs of surprise from her audience, and she waited for them to die down before continuing. She folded her arms across her chest. 'So what we have is a career criminal working with what we can assume is a Protestant extremist. They've kidnapped a former IRA bombmaker.' She raised an eyebrow. 'Quite a mix, I'd say. Lisa, any news about the landscaping company?'
Lisa Davies shook her head. 'Peter's spoken to them and the van isn't theirs. The details on the registration form match and the livery is the same, but it's not their van. He's been over their books and says that they're totally legit. He's working through a list of former employees, but he doesn't hold out much hope. It looks as if they've just set up an imitation. On the van itself, no parking tickets or speeding tickets. We're still checking with the ferry companies, and we're running separate checks with individual police forces to see if it's been involved in any accidents.'
'Okay, keep on top of it. And everyone start putting feelers out on Quinn. Any sniff of him and let David Bingham know immediately. But tread carefully. And if anyone has any thoughts on who might be sporting a lion and flag of St George tattoo, let David and me know straight away.'
– «»-«»-«»Andy soldered the copper wire to the output from the chip in the digital alarm clock, moving her head to the side to avoid the solder fumes. Green-eyes picked up one of the detonators and began to untangle the two white wires that protruded from one end. 'I thought they'd be different colours,' she said.
Andy looked up from the clock. 'What, red and black, like in the movies?'
'I guess so, yeah.'
Andy smiled thinly. 'Doesn't make any difference which way it's connected into the circuit. So there's no need to have different colours.'
'So all that stuff about "shall I cut the black wire or the red wire" is crap?'
Andy bent over the clock again and added a touch more solder to the joint. 'I'll use different-coloured wires in the circuit, but that's purely for my benefit so that I don't make any stupid mistakes. But both wires leading to the detonator are white. Anyway, no bomb disposal man would bother cutting the wires to the detonator. There's no point -all he'd have to do is to pull the detonator out. Besides, they'd be too wary of collapsing circuits.'
'Collapsing circuits? What are they?'
'It's a live circuit with some sort of a relay in it. When the circuit is cut, the relay closes, which in turn activates another circuit, the one containing the detonator. So cutting the wire actually activates the bomb.' Green-eyes continued to unravel the wires. Andy saw what she was doing and gestured with her chin. 'Don't separate the wires,' she warned.
Green-eyes stopped what she was doing. 'What's the problem? It's not connected.'
'Yeah, but they can go off all the same if there's any electrical interference. You can get a spark jumping between the two wires and it'll go off. You'd lose a hand.'
Green-eyes winced and put the detonator back down on the table. 'It's called the Faraday effect,' said Andy, adjusting the timer and setting the alarm. 'You want this set for five minutes, you said?'
'That's right.'
'That's not long.'
'That's what he said. Five minutes.'
Andy checked the digital read-out. Three hundred seconds. She showed it to Green-eyes, then showed her which buttons to press to start the timer. She set the clock on the table and they watched it count off the seconds.
'It's the Faraday effect that's responsible for a lot of bombs going off prematurely. Anything that sends off radio frequencies can do it. Police radios, televisions being turned on and off, even household equipment like fridges and stereos.' Andy realised she was talking too quickly, but she wanted to keep Green-eyes distracted so she wouldn't realise that she'd slipped up. There was someone telling her what to do. Someone who'd told her to set the timer for five minutes.
'There was a volunteer killed a while back, in Aldwych, remember? The bomb he was carrying went off on a bus.'
Green-eyes nodded. 'I remember.'
'The papers said it was because a guy with stereo headphones sat next to him. Turned up the sound, and bang. Blew them all to bits. That's the Faraday effect.'
'Dangerous business,' said Green-eyes.
Andy wondered whether the woman was joking, but the ski mask made it impossible to tell. The Wrestler and the Runner walked into the main office area, chewing on Marks and Spencer sandwiches and laughing.
'It's okay so long as you know what you're doing,' said Andy. She realised that the soldering iron was still on, and she pulled the plug out from the wall. 'This bomb, the small one. It's just a test, right?'
'We want to make sure that the stuff will explode,' said Green-eyes.
'What, you think I'd try to trick you? You think I'd risk my daughter?'
'We just want to be sure, Andrea. A dry run. If you've done your job properly, you've nothing to worry about.'
'Where are you going to set it off?'
'Why?'
'I just wondered.'
'Wondered what? If we're going to kill someone with it?'
Andy nodded.
'We're not, Andrea. Like I said, it's a dry run.' She nodded at the circuit. The digital read-out was still ticking off the seconds. 'If someone was going to defuse this, all they'd have to do is pull the detonator out of the explosive, is that what you said?'
'Sure. If the detonator goes off, it's a relatively small bang. It'd blow your hand off, but not much more. It has to be in the high explosive to set off the bomb.'
'So they're easy to defuse?'
'In theory. But they've got to get to the fuse first. So you hide it inside the bomb. With booby traps around it. Motion detectors, mercury tilt switches, photoelectric cells. Fake circuits. That way, they can't look for the fuse. Not easily, anyway. Also, they won't know if it's on a timer or if it's going to be detonated by remote wire or radio. But an expert can always take a bomb apart. If he has enough time.'
They watched as the digital read-out counted down to zero. The flashlight bulb winked on. 'Bang!' whispered Green-eyes, her eyes burning with fanaticism.
– «»-«»-«»Liam Denham wandered into the briefing room. There were two dozen agents in the room, talking into phones or tapping on computer keyboards. He smiled to himself. It was the new face of intelligence work, a face he doubted he'd ever have been able to embrace even if he'd remained in the job. Intelligence-gathering had become an office job, a job done by suits, by graduates who drank Perrier and played squash every lunch-time. But to Denham, intelligence meant people. It meant persuading people to part with information and that involved face-to-face contact. It might mean meeting them in a pub and talking over a few drinks, it might mean getting a bit physical in a locked room, or handing over an envelope packed with cash, but whatever the means, it was all down to people.
Denham took a long drag on his cigarette and blew smoke up to the ceiling, dangerously close to a smoke detector. One of the agents, a man in his twenties with red-framed spectacles and swept-back blond hair, coughed pointedly. Denham held the cigarette behind his back and walked over to where Patsy was sitting at a desk, deep in conversation with Lisa Davies. She looked up, her face flushed with excitement.
'Liam. I think we've got a lead on the van they took Andrea away in. The Transit. It's made more than half a dozen trips into the City over the past two months. The last one three days ago.'
Lisa handed Denham a computer print-out. It was a list of dates and times. The first date was about a week before Katie had been kidnapped. At the top of the print-out was a description of the van and its registration number.
'City of London police,' said Patsy in answer to Den-ham's unspoken question. 'They record all vehicles entering and leaving the centre.'
'The Ring of Steel?' That was what the press had christened the security arrangements that effectively sealed off the financial district from the rest of the capital.
'I think we can assume that London's the target now,' said Patsy.
Denham handed the print-out back to Lisa. 'What next?' he asked.
'We're going to have to inform the City of London police and the Met. They can start looking for the van. But until we know exactly where the bomb is, there's not much else we can do. There're millions of square feet of office space in the City – we can hardly search it all. Not without tipping the terrorists off that we're on to them.'
Lisa's brow furrowed into deep creases. 'Shouldn't we be warning people, giving them the chance to stay out of the City?'
Patsy stood up, shaking her head. 'Absolutely not. There'd be an uncontrollable panic. The City would grind to a halt. Billions of pounds would be lost.'
'Maybe that's what they want,' mused Denham.
'What do you mean?' asked Patsy.
'Maybe that's what all this is about. Maybe it's financial and not political.'
Patsy pulled a face. 'Extortion, you mean?'
'If it was political, there are easier places to stage a spectacular.'
'That's assuming it is a spectacular, Liam.'
'Six trips? They must be using the van to transport equipment. Six trips is a lot of equipment, so I think it's fair to assume it's going to be a big one. They wouldn't go to all this trouble to build a few letter bombs, would they?'
'That's what you think? They're building the bomb on-site?'
Denham took another drag on his cigarette, ignoring the look of annoyance that flashed across Carter's face. She was less than half his age, and Denham figured he'd earned the right to smoke. 'Why else?'
'They could have been dry runs. I wouldn't want to rule anything out at this stage.'
Denham nodded at the print-out. 'They stayed in the City overnight once. They must have been parked up. Doubt they'd do that if it was a rehearsal.'
Patsy considered what Denham had said and then nodded slowly. 'So, it's a big bomb, but you think it's not political? The IRA bombed the Baltic Exchange and Bishopsgate. And remember Harrods?'
Denham looked around for an ashtray. There wasn't one within reach so he held his cigarette vertically so as not to spill ash on to the carpet. 'That was before the increased security. I don't know. Maybe you're right. At this stage we shouldn't be ruling anything out.'
Patsy looked at her wristwatch. 'Hetherington's going to be here in a few minutes. I'd better brief him.'
'One thing before you rush off,' said Denham. 'The wee girl?'
'What about her?'
"What are we doing to find her?'
Patsy looked uncomfortable, and Denham realised he'd touched a nerve. 'There's not a lot we can do from here,' she said.
'What about the Garda Siochana? Couldn't they be looking?'
Patsy put a hand on Denham's arm and guided him away from Carter's desk. She took him over to a relatively quiet corner of the room. 'Liam, we can't be making waves over there. If the kidnappers know we're on to them, first of all they might kill the girl, and secondly it'll tip off the bomb-makers that we know what they're up to.'
'Maybe not,' said Denham. 'They don't know that we know about Andrea's past. There's no reason that the Garda couldn't be investigating a straightforward kidnapping.'
'But if the men building the bomb realise we're looking for the girl, they'll hardly allow Andrea to telephone her. Or her husband.'
The cigarette in Denham's hand had burnt down to the filter. He looked around for somewhere to put it and spotted a half-empty plastic coffee cup. He dropped the butt in the cup, then turned back to Patsy. "We've got to do something, Patsy. We can't just abandon the wee girl.'
'Priorities, Liam. We neutralise the bomb. We take the participants into custody. Then we get the girl back. It has to be done in that order.'
Denham sighed mournfully. 'Aye, you might be right.'
'How's the husband?'
'He's bearing up. God knows how, considering what he's going through.'
'And McCormack. Have you heard from McCormack?'
'Not yet. I'll give him a call.'
Patsy looked at her watch again. 'I've got to go, Liam. I'll talk to you later, okay?'
Denham watched her walk away. She was right, of course. The bomb took precedence over Katie. But knowing the decision was a logical one didn't make it any easier to accept. Denham had lost a child, a long, long time ago, and the pain was something he wouldn't wish on anyone. He lit another cigarette, then went in search of an empty office from where he could phone McCormack.
He had written McCormack's number in the small black notebook that he always carried with him, even after he'd left Special Branch. It rang out for more than a minute before the IRA man answered, and when he did he sounded out of breath. 'Ah, it's you, Liam. I might have guessed.'
'Are you okay, Thomas?'
'I was in the bath, having a soak. I'm standing here dripping water all over the hall carpet, and if my wife catches me we'll both be in trouble.'
'Do you want to dry off? I'll wait.'
'No need, this won't take long. It's names you're ringing for, I suppose.' McCormack laughed softly. 'Right turn of events this, isn't it?'
'The way of the world, Thomas. The new order. Did you come up with anyone?'
'I've one name. George McEvoy. Do you know him?'
'I know of him. Did twelve in Long Kesh, didn't he?'
'That's him. He was with the Civil Administration Team. Lives in Dundalk with his brother, but he hasn't been seen for a while.'
'How long a while?'
'A month. His brother doesn't know where he is, but George told him he'd be away for a few weeks.'
'Has he had experience in bomb-making?'
There was a long silence from McCormack, then a faint whistling sound, as if he were exhaling through clenched teeth. 'Jesus, Chief Inspector, you're not asking for much, are you?'
'I need to know, Thomas. We think they're in London. I think they're planning a spectacular.'
'Well, McEvoy wouldn't be the man for that. He was never technical.'
'Never attached to the England Department?'
'Definitely not. To the best of my knowledge, he's never even been across the water.'
'What was he doing with the CAT?'
'What do you think? He wasn't handing out brownie points, that's for sure.'
'Punishment beatings? Knee-cappings?'
'That's what CAT does.'
'Kidnappings?'
There was another pause, shorter this time. 'I see what you mean. Yes, he could be the one who's got the little girl.'
'Do you have any idea where he might be?'
'No. I'm afraid not, Liam. He's disappeared.'
'Can you give me his address? I'll run a check on his credit cards, just in case.'
McCormack gave Denham the address and he wrote it down in his notebook. 'Anyone else gone missing?' he asked.
'No one obvious. There's a limit to what I can find out, though. Some of the ASUs are still active – they're underground and impossible to check on. Not without questions being asked, questions that I'd find bloody difficult to answer.'
'Are you telling me you've got ASUs in the UK, still active?'
'And I suppose you've pulled all your agents out, have you?'
'I don't have agents any more, Thomas. I'm retired.'
'Special Branch, then. MI5. SAS. 14th Int. They're all still on the ground, North and South, so why would you expect the England Department to stand down?'
'And there's no way of accounting for them?'
'Not without going through the Army Council, no. But I can tell you that there's no way the England Department is involved in any sort of spectacular. I give you my word on that.'
'Not even in a freelance capacity?'
'That wouldn't be a possibility. Not in a million years. Did you talk to Micky Geraghty?'
This time it was Denham who hesitated. McCormack picked up on it immediately.
'What's wrong?'
'He's dead, Thomas. Murdered. Someone tortured him, presumably to get information on Andrea Sheridan.'
'Shit,' said McCormack quietly. 'He was a good 'un.'
Denham said nothing. Geraghty had been an IRA volunteer, a sniper with a good number of kills to his credit. While he took no pleasure in the man's death, he wasn't about to grieve for him.
'Who's going to be handling the arrangements?' McCormack asked.
Denham explained that they'd had to leave the body where they'd found it, in the basement of the farmhouse. 'There isn't going to be a funeral, at least not until we've got this sorted out,' he said.
'Do me a favour,' said McCormack. 'Call me when it's over. I'll take care of it.'
Denham promised that he would. The IRA would probably give Geraghty a full military funeral, a tricolour draped over the coffin and men in ski masks firing a volley of shots into the air. It would be a celebration of the man's career with the terrorist organisation, but Denham knew it would be churlish not to agree to McCormack's request. He stabbed the remains of his cigarette into a metal ashtray next to the phone, and immediately felt the craving to light up another one. He decided to call his wife instead.
– «»-«»-«»The door to Jason Hetherington's office was ajar, but Patsy still knocked before entering. He was sitting behind his desk, reading a file, an antique pair of pince-nez glasses perched on the end of his nose. The glasses were an affectation, as was the ever-present white rose in his buttonhole, grown in his own Sussex garden. He looked up as Patsy walked in and gave her a broad smile. He was wearing a dark blue Savile Row suit with the faintest of pin-stripes, a crisp white shirt and a Garrick Club tie. 'Patsy, my dear, thanks for dropping by.' Hetherington was Deputy Director-General (Operational), second only to MI5's Director-General. He was responsible for all the agency's operational activities, from counter-subversion and counter-espionage to intelligence-gathering, and had been Patsy's mentor for the past ten years. It was his decision to send her to Belfast to head up the Irish Counter-Terrorism section, with the promise that in the near future she'd be brought back to Thames House as his number two. 'Any news?'
'It's definitely London,' she said, dropping into one of the chairs opposite Hetherington's desk.
Hetherington took off his spectacles and placed them carefully on top of the file he'd been studying. 'Ah, that's not good.'
Patsy smiled at the understatement. 'A van they've been using has been in and out of the City.'
'And your recommended course of action?'
'We look for the van, obviously. We'll liaise with the local police, but we won't be telling them why we want the van. And we're looking for Quinn.'
'The blagger?' The slang sounded strange in Hetherington's upper-crust accent. It was another affectation of his, as if he were keen to show that despite his Eton and Oxford background he was still one of the boys.
'Again, we'll use the local police, but without saying why he's wanted. They're being told not to approach him if he's spotted.'
'Do we have any other names in the frame?'
'Just Mark Quinn. We're assuming that the device is being constructed somewhere in the City, so we're working through all new leases taken on within the past six months, cross-referencing with company records and VAT data, looking for companies with no track record. We'll follow up with visits.'
Hetherington shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 'That could take for ever.'
'It's an outside chance considering the possible timeframe, but long shots sometimes pay off.'
'And the telephone surveillance is in place?'
'GCHQ are on-line and BT and Telecom Eireann are cooperating fully.'
'Another long shot?'
Patsy looked pained. Hetherington wasn't being critical -he was one of the most supportive bosses Patsy had ever worked for- but she was all too well aware of how little they had to go on. Two long shots and a needle in a haystack.
'She's called her husband once,' said Patsy. 'We believe she'll try again.'
'The attempt on his life worries me, Patsy. I don't see any logic in it.'
'The house was bugged,' said Patsy. 'We discovered one on the phone when our people went in to switch off the answering machine. We swept it from top to bottom and found others.'
'So even without visual surveillance, they'd know that the police were involved.'
Patsy nodded. 'They'd know that he'd been taken into the Garda station. I suppose they were moving to limit the damage.'
Hetherington nodded. 'Very well. But doesn't that make it more likely that they won't let her telephone her husband? Knowing that he's fled the house?'
'They might assume that all she'll get is the machine.'
Hethrington grimaced, as if he had a bad taste in his mouth.
'I know, shots don't come any longer. But if they think he's not at home, it'll reassure her to leave a message for him, at no risk to the kidnappers.' Hetherington still didn't look convinced, and Patsy didn't blame him. She spoke quickly, not giving him the chance to interrupt. 'A stronger possibility is that she'll be able to get to a phone of her own accord. Call her husband without them knowing. Having said that, I do feel it's more likely that it's her daughter she'll try to make contact with. And the kidnappers have no reason not to allow her to speak to her daughter.'
'Unless she's already dead.' Hetherington toyed with his wedding ring and leaned back in his chair, his brow furrowed as he considered their options. They sat in silence for a while. 'Possible targets?' he said eventually.
'If it's political, it could be anything from the Stock Exchange to the Bank of England. Mansion House. Another go at the Baltic Exchange. If it's a high profile they want, they could be targeting the NatWest Tower or Lloyd's of London.'
'So can we at least increase security there?'
'I'm reluctant to inform the local police, Jason. At the moment, possibly fifty people know of this threat, and almost all of them work for us. If we bring in the Met and the City of London police, we're talking about hundreds of people. Thousands.'
Hetherington steepled his fingers under his chin. 'They could search a lot faster.'
'Except the act of searching might well precipitate events. Plus, there'd be leakage. All it takes is one copper warning his wife to stay out of the City for a while. She mentions it to a friend, the friend gets on to the press, and we're splashed all over the front page of the Sun.'
'A D-notice would put paid to that.'
'Word would still get around. I'd rather keep it in-house for as long as possible. But I take your point about increasing security at the more obvious targets. Most buildings employ their own security. I can have a quiet word.'
'I'd like a list,' said Hetherington. 'What about possible American targets?'
'There are no US government buildings within the security cordon. But there are plenty of American financial institutions.'
'Is there anything we can do there to increase security?'
Patsy nodded thoughtfully. 'I'll draw up a list,' she said.
'And we're still not issuing a formal warning to the Americans?'
'We've no reason to think that the target's American. And they do have a tendency to overreact.'
Hetherington chuckled dryly. 'Yes, I suppose they do. But if you get so much as an inkling that this venture is aimed at the Americans, I have to know tout de suite.'
Another affectation. Hetherington liked to throw the odd French phrase into his conversations, especially when he was under pressure.
'Are you sure that GCHQ won't inform the Americans? Echelon being under the NSA's wing, as it were.'
'We're using our own dictionary and GCHQ's K Division is handling the traffic. We should be able to keep the NSA at arm's length. For a while, at least.'
'Right,' said Hetherington, leaning forward again. 'The JIC meets tomorrow. I'm going to need a full report before last thing tonight.'
'It'll be on your desk by five,' promised Patsy.
She knew there was no point in asking her boss to hold off informing the Joint Intelligence Committee. The committee met every week in the Cabinet Office, and in theory the entire British intelligence community was answerable to it – MI5, MI6, GCHQ and the Defence Intelligence Service. The chairman reported directly to the Cabinet Secretary and therefore to the Prime Minister. The fact that GCHQ had already been asked for assistance effectively forced Hetherington's hand. He'd have to notify JIC of the bomb threat at the first available opportunity in case the committee heard it first from GCHQ.
'I think it's time to call Hereford,' said Patsy. 'When we are ready to move we're going to have to move fast. They have a Special Projects Team on stand-by at the Regent's Park barracks, but I was thinking of requesting another sixteen-man troop from Counter Revolutionary Warfare Wing. We can have them on stand-by here.'
Hetherington nodded thoughtfully. 'Agreed. What about DII?'
'I'd rather keep Met involvement to a minimum,' said Patsy. 'CRW has sniper specialists, too. And if the troopers go in, I think they'd prefer to have their own snipers backing them up.'
'Do we inform C13?' C13 was Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch.
'Again, I think not. I really would prefer to keep it in-house until the last possible moment. Once we do have a location, C13 and the Yard's Technical Support Branch could be useful, but until then I think they'll just get in the way.'
Hetherington put his spectacles on again and peered over the top of them. 'If anything goes wrong and the Met were kept out of it, the Commissioner's going to do everything he can to distance himself,' he warned. 'There could be a lot of mud flying around, and it'll be heading in our direction. It won't be the SAS that gets the blame. It'll be you. And me.'
'I appreciate that, Jason. But the more they're involved, the greater the chance that something will go wrong. Horses for courses.'
Hetherington pursed his lips and nodded slowly. 'Very well,' he said. 'I'll try to get JIC approval for that. Spread the responsibility, as it were.'
He picked up the file he'd been reading and Patsy stood up. As she reached the door, Hetherington called her name and she turned expectantly. 'I don't want to be a nag,' he said, 'but has someone been smoking in here?'
'A visitor,' she said. 'Sorry.'
'Be so good as to ask them to keep it outside, would you? It's hard enough trying to give up without having temptation waved under my nose.' He pushed his spectacles further up his nose and smiled apologetically.
– «»-«»-«»Andy made sure that her industrial respirator was snug against her face, then slid her plastic goggles down over her eyes. Green-eyes did the same, but as she was placing it over her ski mask she had trouble fitting the respirator. 'Why do we need these?' She asked.
'The aluminium,' said Andy. 'You've got to keep it out of your eyes and lungs.' They were standing next to a line of three desks, on which were containers of the dried ammonium nitrate, aluminium powder, soap powder, sawdust and cans of diesel oil.
Andy showed Green-eyes how to measure out the correct amounts of the different ingredients into a large Tupperware container, leaving about a third empty.
'What's the point of the aluminium powder? I mean, I can see that the oil helps it to burn, but what's the aluminium for?'
Andy explained as she mixed the ingredients with a wooden stirrer. 'That's not what the oil's for. The oil's to help the aluminium to stick to the ammonium nitrate. The better it's mixed, the more sensitive it is to the booster charge. It's the aluminium that makes it such a good explosive. When it oxidises in the initial explosion, it gives off huge amounts of heat. Aluminium burns like crazy. Remember those pictures of the aluminium ships that went up in the Falklands?'
Green-eyes nodded.
'That heat helps lengthen the detonation pulse, makes it much more powerful. You can use charcoal, but aluminium powder's better. Magnesium's even more effective but it's not as readily available.'
'And the sawdust and soap?'
'The soap enhances the detonation. So does the sawdust. They lower the detonation velocity, and keep the density down. The greater the density, the harder it is to get it to explode.'
They carried their Tupperware containers over to the tumble-driers and put one container in each drier.
'Ten minutes on the lowest setting should do it,' said Andy. 'It's just a way of mixing it efficiently.'
'How long will it take to do all four thousand pounds?'
Andy did a quick calculation in her head. Each load was about fifteen pounds, so with two driers they'd be able to mix just under two hundred pounds an hour.
'About twenty-four hours,' she said. 'But we can mix some by hand, too. It's just that the tumble-driers are more efficient.'
Green-eyes went over to a desk where Andy had been building the wiring circuit. 'This is ready?' she asked.
'I've tested it a dozen times with bulbs,' said Andy. 'I won't put the detonators in until the last minute.'
'Detonators? Plural?'
'It's always safer to use more than one. Sometimes they fail. In Belfast they used three. The last thing they wanted was for an unexploded device to fall into the hands of the army. Our signature would be all over it.'
'What do you mean, signature?'
'The style. The technique. Even the explosive mixture, the ratio of ingredients and the way they've been mixed. Every bombmaker has his or her own way of putting a device together, as distinctive as a fingerprint, or a signature.'
Andy looked across at Green-eyes, trying to gauge the woman's reaction. The ski mask made it impossible. Did she know about a bombmaker's signature? Did the person she was working for? There was no way of knowing without asking directly, and Andy didn't expect to be given a truthful answer. If they were forcing her to build the bomb so that it looked as if it were the work of the IRA, then they'd hardly be likely to admit it to her. Because the only way the deception would work was if Andy wasn't alive to contradict the evidence. If they truly wanted to make it look as if the IRA had carried out a major bomb outrage in the City of London, Andy would have to die.
Green-eyes straightened up. 'Show me again how we set the clock,' she said.
Andy went through the procedure, using flashlight bulbs where the detonators would be. The lights winked on as the tumble-driers finished their cycle.
Half an hour later they had fifty pounds of the explosive mixture in Tupperware containers on the desk in front of them. Green-eyes reached for a box of medical gloves and put on a pair. 'Did you wear gloves when you prepared the explosive?' she asked.
Andy shook her head. 'No. You need the sensitivity when you're doing the electrical work, and you have to be able to squeeze the explosive into the form you want it. It'd be like trying to make pastry with gloves on.'
Green-eyes nodded and put the box to one side. Earlier in the day she had gone out to buy a Samsonite hard-shell suitcase, and she lifted it on to another desk and opened it.
Andy pulled the lid off one of the containers. The mixture was the consistency of bread dough, grey in colour, and it still smelled strongly of fertiliser. She poured the mixture into the suitcase, using a wooden spatula to scrape it out of the corners of the container. She poured in two batches of the mixture, almost twenty pounds in all.
'You're going to take this away now?' Andy asked. 'Because if you're not, we should hold off until you're ready. You want to have it live for as little time as possible before detonation.'
Green-eyes looked at her wristwatch. 'As soon as it's ready, we're off.'
Andy nodded. 'Okay. But remember what I said about the Faraday effect. Stay away from electrical equipment. Radios. Mobile phones. Anything that gives off electrical radiation.' She gestured at the line of ovens and the two tumble-driers. 'We should unplug those before we make the circuit live. And I meant what I said about mobile phones. Have you ever held one near a radio? You can hear the buzz they give off every so often. It's the phone keeping in touch with the nearest transmitter. That buzz, under the right circumstances, can set the detonator off. Same with two-way radios.'
'But it's safe, right?'
Andy grimaced. 'It's a bomb. When all's said and done, it's a bomb.' She patted the suitcase. 'When this goes off, it'll kill anyone within a three-hundred-foot range. It could blow the front off a building. So safe isn't really an appropriate description, is it?'
Green-eyes took a step back, as if she had realised the destructive power of the device for the first time.
Andy smiled despite herself. 'You'd have to get a darn sight farther away than that,' she said. 'Besides, if it did go off and you were this close, you wouldn't feel a thing.' She wasn't sure if mobile phones would have any effect on the circuit – they'd been few and far between in Northern Ireland when she was building bombs for the IRA. But she wanted to make sure that Green-eyes left the phone in the briefcase and didn't take it with her when she went out.
When she'd emptied two of the containers into the suitcase, she flattened the mixture with her hands, then hollowed out a space about a foot square. The Semtex was on another desk, and Andy carried over one of the blocks and carefully unwrapped it. Green-eyes watched over her shoulder as she put it in the space she'd made in the fertiliser/aluminium mixture. She pressed it down with the flat of her hands, then lifted up the electric circuit and placed it on to the Semtex. She pushed the two Mark 4 detonators into the Semtex at an angle so that they were almost completely buried, just half an inch sticking out. She pressed the batteries slightly, so that they were stuck in the Semtex, then carefully moved the digital clock and the wires leading to it, resting them in the lid of the suitcase. She opened the remaining two Tupperware containers and scraped the rest of the fertiliser/aluminium mixture into the case. Again she used her hands to press the mixture down, kneading it to force out any trapped air. She put two empty garbage bags on top of the mixture, then laid the clock on top of them. She put another half-dozen empty bags on top of the clock to protect it when the lid was closed.
'That's it,' she said. 'All you have to do is set the clock.'
'It's live?'
'It's live but it won't go off until the timer's set.'
Green-eyes nodded slowly, staring at the suitcase. Andy closed the lid and snapped the catches shut.
'Keep it this way up. If you try to carry it by the handle, everything'll move inside.'
'It's going to look strange, carrying it like that, isn't it?'
Andy shrugged. 'That's not really my problem, is it? It has to be that way if you're going to carry it in the boot of a car.'
Green-eyes took off her gloves. 'Right, I'm going to get changed. As soon as we've taken the case out of here, you start preparing the rest of the stuff. We'll need it for tomorrow.'
'Tomorrow? You're going to do it tomorrow?'
'Just get the mixture ready,' said Green-eyes, walking towards the offices. 'All of it.'
Andy watched her go. Tomorrow? Twenty-four hours? She shivered. She had to do something to stop them. But what? What could she do that would prevent them blowing up the building, without endangering Katie?
A few minutes later, Green-eyes came out of the office. She'd changed out of her overalls and into a blue suit with a short skirt and high heels. It made the ski mask she was wearing all the more sinister. The Runner was with her. He'd also taken his overalls off and was wearing a denim jacket and jeans. Green-eyes showed him the suitcase. 'Make sure you don't tilt it,' she said.
He lifted it off the table, then put it down. 'No problem,' he said.
Green-eyes looked at her watch again. She nodded at the Wrestler. 'We'll be back this evening. Keep an eye on her.'
'Will do,' said the Wrestler, putting on a pair of gloves. He strapped his shoulder holster over his overalls, took out his gun and checked the action, ejecting the clip and slotting it back in.
Green-eyes nodded at the Runner. He lifted the suitcase with a grunt and headed towards the reception area. Green-eyes followed him.
'How much are they paying you to do this?' Andy asked the Wrestler.
He sneered at her from beneath his ski mask. 'More than enough,' he said. He slotted his gun back into its holster.
'For killing people?'
'There are plenty of people in the world,' he said, measuring aluminium powder into a Tupperware container. 'It can stand to lose a few.'
'You don't mean that,' she said.
'I read something once,' he said. 'It was on some charity handout. It said that every day something like forty thousand children die from hunger or preventable illnesses. That's children. Children who never harmed anyone. Hell, they don't get to live long enough to hurt anybody. Forty thousand a day, almost fifteen million a year.'
'That doesn't make any sense at all,' she said.
'Oh, it does, it's just that you don't understand.'
'You're doing this to help starving children?'
'No, I'm doing it for a quarter of a million pounds. But the world being as sick as it is, don't expect me to give a fuck if a few people get killed. Now get on with what you're doing. You talk too much.'
– «»-«»-«»Jason Hetherington walked into the main briefing room, followed by a man in his twenties with short blond hair that looked as if it hadn't seen a comb for a while. The man had inquisitive eyes that flicked from side to side as he entered the room, taking everything in. He was wearing a brown leather jacket over a pale green sweatshirt, blue Wrangler jeans and Nike training shoes, and looked like a small-time drug dealer on the make.
'Ah, there she is,' murmured Hetherington as he spotted Patsy Ellis crouched over a computer terminal. 'Patsy, someone here I'd like you to meet.'
Patsy looked up from the computer and frowned at the new arrival. He looked totally out of place in the roomful of enthusiastic young agents, even more so because he was standing next to Hetherington and his Savile Row suit, made-to-measure starched shirt and club tie. It wasn't just the man's attire that made him stand out – his posture was so relaxed as to be bordering on insolence.
'Captain Payne,' said Hetherington. 'Special Projects Team. He and his men have just arrived from Hereford.'
Payne stuck out his hand. 'Stuart,' he said.
Patsy shook. He had a firm, dry grip, though he didn't try to impress by crushing her fingers. He smiled openly, and Patsy couldn't help but noticing that four of his top front teeth seemed to be capped – they were slightly whiter than the rest of his teeth. 'Patsy Ellis,' she said. 'Glad to have you on board, Stuart.'
'His team are in the gymnasium,' said Hetherington, adjusting his cuffs. 'Unpacking their equipment.'
'We weren't sure what to bring so we've got everything but the kitchen sink,' said Payne. He had a Geordie accent which he'd obviously made an attempt to tone down over the years.
'And I'm afraid we're still none the wiser,' said Patsy.
Hetherington motioned with his hand that they should go back to his office, and they walked along the corridor together.
'We're reasonably certain that they're in the City,' said Patsy. 'We've identified one as a career criminal, an armed robber.'
Payne frowned and scratched the back of his head. 'I thought this was an IRA operation.'
'The bombmaker's IRA. But she's working under coercion.'
Hetherington opened the door to his office and ushered the two of them in. 'Her child's been kidnapped,' he said, taking his place behind the desk. 'They're threatening to kill the child unless she co-operates. We're assuming she's building a bomb for them. A big bomb. We're pursuing several lines of enquiry and, not to be too melodramatic, the clock is ticking. As soon as anything breaks, we'll have to move quickly.'
Payne nodded thoughtfully. 'So the bomb is already in the City? It's not in some sort of vehicle?'
'We don't know,' said Patsy. 'They've been using a van, but we think they've been using it to transport equipment. If I were to make a guess, I'd say they were assembling it in a building. But we're not in the guessing business. We're not ruling anything out at this stage.'
'Okay. So basically we'll have to play it by ear? No rehearsals?'
'I'm afraid not,' said Patsy.
Payne smiled broadly and winked. 'That's what we do best,' he said.
– «»-«»-«»McCracken and Quinn picked up Egan at a service station on the M1 outside Luton. He climbed into the back of the Volvo. 'Everything okay?' he asked.
McCracken nodded. 'We're on schedule,' she said. 'Tomorrow afternoon.'
'Excellent,' said Egan. He settled back in the seat as Quinn drove back on to the motorway and accelerated towards Milton Keynes.
On Egan's instructions, they kept to just below seventy miles an hour, but it still took them less than half an hour to drive to the industrial estate. Egan got out and unlocked the main door, and Quinn drove the Volvo into the factory and parked next to the Transit van. McCracken climbed out while Quinn pulled the lever to unlock the boot.
After he'd closed the metal door, Egan opened the boot and looked down at the suitcase. It always amazed him how something so innocuous could do so much damage. Five cubic feet of chemicals at most, a few pence worth of electrical components, and yet it had the capacity to completely destroy the building they were in. Bigger bombs didn't look any more threatening. The bomb that destroyed the Federal Building in Oklahoma, killing hundreds of US government officials, would have fitted comfortably into the back of the Transit. The one that had devastated the centre of Nairobi wasn't much bigger. Egan put on a pair of medical gloves.
McCracken opened the back of the Transit while Egan carefully lifted the suitcase out of the boot. He carried it over to the van and slid it along the metal floor. Quinn came up behind him. 'Shall I put the Volvo outside?' he asked.
Egan shook his head. 'Get the petrol and douse the offices, yeah?'
Quinn went over to a stack of red petrol cans and picked up two of them. McCracken watched as Egan opened the suitcase. He eased aside the plastic bags to expose the digital clock. 'Why the gloves?' she asked. 'It's all going to go up in flames anyway.'
Egan looked over his shoulder. 'They can get partial prints off anything these days, Lydia.'
'Even after an explosion?'
'Sure. Off the smallest fragment. DNA, too. A few skin cells or a piece of hair. That's why the authorities spend such a long time collecting all the residue after an explosion. They'll be all over the place once it goes off. The only prints I want them to find are the woman's.' He checked his Rolex and compared it to the digital read-out on the bomb's timer. Exact to the second. 'Right, show me what to do,' he said.
McCracken talked him through the setting of the alarm, then he pressed the button to activate it.
'Okay,' he said. 'Five minutes.' He could feel his heart pounding and he smiled to himself. Nothing had changed, not really. The bomb was the same as when he had lifted it out of the boot of the Volvo. Individually, the components were exactly as they had been all day. But his body recognised what his mind was trying to ignore. By pressing the alarm button he'd irrevocably changed the nature of the beast. Now it was live. Now it had the power of life and death. He shut the suitcase lid and closed the rear door of the van.
'Better get the Volvo out before the fumes get any worse,' he said. He pulled the chain to open the door for her. McCracken got into the car and reversed it out through the doorway.
Over by the offices, Quinn threw down the two petrol cans and went over to the stack for two more. The smell of petrol wafted over from the offices. 'All of it, Mark!' Egan called. 'We want the whole place to go up.'
He went over to help Quinn, and together they doused the offices with petrol, then McCracken poured more of the fuel along the sides of the factory. Egan looked at his watch again. A little over four minutes. Plenty of time, though he could feel the adrenaline pumping through his system. The fright, fight and flight response. But Egan was well used to suppressing his body's automatic reactions, and he calmly closed the rear doors of the Transit.
He walked over to where Quinn was slopping petrol around the corridor between the plasterboard offices. 'Nearly done,' said Quinn. Egan took his automatic out of his jacket pocket and slammed the butt against the back of Quinn's head. The man fell without a sound, and Egan deftly caught the petrol can before it hit the ground. He hefted the unconscious man over his shoulder and carried him and the half-empty can of petrol over to the Transit. He put Quinn in the driver's seat, then poured the rest of the petrol over him before looking at his Rolex again. Two minutes. Time to go.
He walked quickly across the factory area, pulled the chain down to close the metal shutter, then left by the pedestrian doorway, closing the door behind him.
McCracken was gunning the engine of the Volvo. 'You're cutting it close,' she said.
'Ninety seconds,' he said, pulling open the passenger door and climbing in. 'Anyway, we want to see if it goes up.'
She looked at him expectantly. 'Where's Mark?'
'Mark's not coming with us,' said Egan, taking off his gloves.
'What?'
Egan pointed ahead. 'Lydia, I think if we're going to discuss this, we should be doing it while we're on the move. Don't you?'
McCracken looked back at the factory unit as if reluctant to leave.
'Eighty seconds,' said Egan.
McCracken put the Volvo in gear and drove off. Egan looked around casually, checking to see if they were being observed, but the industrial estate's pavements were deserted. It wasn't a place where people walked around. Almost all the men and women who worked on the estate drove in. McCracken drove quickly out of the estate and on to the main road to Milton Keynes. The road curved back along the estate, giving them a clear view of the factory units.
'What happened back there?' said McCracken, her eyes flicking between the traffic and the industrial estate on her right.
'You said it yourself, Lydia. He was unreliable. It's almost over – we don't need to be carrying a liability. For the next stage we need Andrea's total concentration. What we don't need is her looking over her shoulder at Quinn every other minute.' He looked at his watch. 'Ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.'
There was a flash of light from the skylights at the top of the factory unit, followed almost immediately by a shower of debris erupting from the roof and the metal shutter being blown out of the side of the building. A second later there was a dull crump that they felt as much as heard.
Egan looked at his watch and frowned. 'Five seconds early.' He looked across at the burning building. It was already well ablaze and little remained of the roof.
The traffic was slowing around them as drivers craned their necks to get a better look at the inferno. People were pouring out of adjacent factory units and running away from the blaze. Thick plumes of black smoke were spiralling upwards. By the time the emergency services arrived, there'd be nothing left.
'And that was just fifty pounds?' asked McCracken, slowing to avoid a coach ahead of them that was barely travelling at walking pace. All the passengers had moved over to the right-hand side of the vehicle and were peering through the windows.
'Pretty impressive, huh? Andrea knows her stuff.' Egan looked across at her and smiled thinly. 'You're thinking of the damage that a four-thousand-pound bomb will do, aren't you?'
McCracken shrugged. She accelerated past the coach and switched over to the left-hand lane, where the traffic was moving faster.
'It's gonna be awesome, Lydia. Absolutely awesome.'
– «»-«»-«»Martin reached out for the black phone, but pulled his hand back when Fanning gave a small shake of his head. 'I keep wanting to check that they're working,' said Martin.
'They're fine.' Fanning ran a hand through his thick blond hair. He tapped the digital tape recorder. 'This monitors the signal constantly. Any problems with the line and it'd show a red light. Relax.'
'Relax?' Martin stood up and paced around the office. Carter and Denham watched him from the sofa. 'What if she doesn't call? What if they don't let her use the phone?'
'There are other lines of enquiry, Martin,' said Carter. 'We're doing everything we can.'
Martin continued pacing. 'What if it's not enough? What if they kill her? What if we never find Katie?' He stopped and glared at the telephones as if he could force them to ring by effort of will.
Carter pushed herself up out of the sofa and went over to Martin. She was a couple of inches shorter than he was and had to tilt her chin up to maintain eye contact. 'Martin, you have to take it easy. Worrying isn't going to solve anything. When she calls, the kidnappers are going to be listening in. If they suspect you're with someone, they'll cut the connection immediately. You have to stay calm.'
The door opened and they all turned to look at Patsy Ellis. 'There's been an explosion,' she said.
'Is Andy all right?' asked Martin. He took a couple of steps towards Patsy. 'Is she? Is she okay?'
'We're not exactly sure what happened, Martin,' said Patsy. 'It wasn't here. It was in Milton Keynes.'
Martin bent over as if he'd been punched in the stomach. He struggled to speak but couldn't find any words. Milton Keynes? What the hell did that have to do with Andy?
'Sit down, Martin,' said Patsy. Carter took his arm and eased him down on to a chair.
'Are we talking about an own goal here?' asked Denham.
'We've no idea what happened,' said Patsy. 'Other than that there was an explosion on an industrial estate just outside Milton Keynes. It was a device of some sort. SOCO are there now, along with explosive officers from the anti-terrorist branch. Early reports are that there was a vehicle inside a factory unit and that it exploded. There was at least one person killed.'
Martin put his head in his hands and moaned. Carter patted the back of his neck and looked across at Patsy. Patsy shrugged, not sure what to say. She fingered the crucifix around her neck.
'Just one?' asked Denham.
'That's the information we have.'
Denham went over to Martin and sat down at the table next to him. 'That's good news, Martin. She wouldn't be on her own, not with the bomb.'
Martin lifted his head. Denham could see the hope in his eyes. 'Do you think?'
'I'm sure. If it was an accident, there would have been more killed.' He scratched the birthmark on his neck. 'And there's no reason for her to be in Milton Keynes. It's a wasteland. No terrorist is going to waste a bomb on Milton Keynes.'
Martin took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Denham looked over at Patsy and grimaced. He hoped he wasn't being too optimistic.
– «»-«»-«»Andy took the Tupperware container out of the tumble-drier and placed it on the floor. She put in a new container, set the timer, then stood up and stretched. The Wrestler was mixing a fresh batch, measuring out the aluminium powder with a plastic cup. They'd done almost a quarter of the mixing, and had a line of black garbage bags, each containing about thirty pounds of explosive. The neck of each bag was tied with a metal fastener.
Andy went over to him. 'I'm going to take a break,' she said, her voice muffled by the respirator. 'I need something to drink.'
The Wrestler nodded. 'Bring me back a Coke, yeah?'
Andy went along to the office where Green-eyes had stockpiled the food and drink. She took a chicken salad roll out of the Marks and Spencer carrier bag and opened a bottle of iced tea. She listened at the door before easing it open, then padded across the corridor and into the office opposite. The briefcase was where she'd left it. Andy picked it up and carried it back into the meeting room. She put it on the table and started flicking through the combinations. She'd reached the high seven hundreds.
– «»-«»-«»O'Keefe jumped as he felt a hand on his shoulder. He whirled around, his right hand reaching for his holstered gun, but instantly relaxed when he saw it was McCracken. She'd put her ski mask on, but he could still see that she was grinning at his reaction. He pulled his respirator down. 'Didn't hear you,' he said, pointing at his ear. 'The tumble-driers.'
'That's okay,' said McCracken. 'Where's Andrea?'
O'Keefe gestured with his thumb at the private offices. 'Getting a drink.' He looked over McCracken's shoulder. 'Where's Quinn?'
'Quinn's not with us any more.'
'What? He's buggered off?'
'Not exactly.' She frowned at the line of black bags. Ms that all?'
'Come on, it's hard bloody work, this. There's only the two driers. I'm doing as much as I can by hand, but it's taking for ever.' He grinned. 'The IRA used to use cement mixers for this bit, you know? We should have tried to bring a cement mixer in, huh?'
'Yeah, sure. We've got to get this done by tomorrow or Egan's going to be on the warpath.'
'It'll be done. We could do with Quinn, though.'
'Quinn's dead.'
O'Keefe's jaw dropped. 'Dead? What the hell happened?'
'He went up with the van.'
O'Keefe put down his wooden spatula. 'McCracken, what the fuck happened?'
McCracken explained what Egan had done. And why. O'Keefe listened in silence, then rubbed his throat. 'He's a hard bastard, is Egan. You trust him?'
'He's come through with everything he promised. A third of our money in advance, this place, the Semtex.'
'Yeah, but he didn't say anything about blowing Quinn away, did he? What if he decides to get rid of the two of us the same way?'
'Quinn was a mistake.'
'Aye. But he was Egan's mistake. Remember that. Egan hired us all.'
'I'll be sure to tell him that,' said McCracken with a cold smile.
'You know what I mean, Lydia,' said O'Keefe. 'What do we really know about Egan, or what his agenda is?'
'He's a pro, and he pays. That's all we need to know.'
'Aye, that's as maybe. But watch your back, eh?'
'Maybe you could watch it for me, Don. And I'll watch yours.'
O'Keefe smirked. 'If it's all the same to you, I'll take care of my own back,' he said.
One of the tumble-driers reached the end of its cycle and O'Keefe went over to it. 'I'll get Andrea,' said McCracken. 'With Quinn out of the way, she's going to have to pull her finger out.'
– «»-«»-«»Andy clicked the end tumbler of the combination lock and pushed the button. The lock clicked open. Eight-six-four. She stared at the lock, not quite believing that she'd done it. She swallowed and looked up at the door. She'd been in the office for almost ten minutes and wasn't sure how long she could stay without the Wrestler wondering what she was doing.
She set the second combination dial to zero-zero-zero and began working her way through the combinations. After several futile attempts, she had a sudden thought. She had a briefcase of her own, though she rarely used it. The combination was Katie's birthday. Nine-one-seven. The seventeenth of September. Andy had set both locks to the same number. She wondered if Green-eyes had done the same. She set the second dial to eight-six-four, said a silent prayer, and pushed the button with her thumb. It clicked open. Her heart pounded. Would the mobile phone be inside? And if it was, who would she call?
Just as she was about to open the briefcase, she heard footsteps outside. High heels, crunching softly along the carpet tiles.
Andy fumbled with the catches and snapped them shut. She slipped the briefcase under the table and stood up, wiping her sweaty palms on the legs of her jeans. The door was flung open. It was Green-eyes. 'What the hell's going on?' she asked angrily.
'What do you mean?' replied Andy, trying to sound as innocent as possible. She forced herself not to look down.
'I mean I want you out there working, not in here skiving.'
Andy picked up the chicken salad roll and waved it in front of Green-eyes. 'I've got to eat, haven't I?'
Green-eyes jerked her thumb at the door. 'You can eat out there.'
Andy stayed where she was. She looked at the video recorder, and then back at the woman. 'I've had a thought,' she said. 'About the timer.'
'That's another thing. That bomb went off early. Five seconds early. How could that happen?'
Andy pulled at her lower lip. 'The chip, I guess.' She went over to the video recorder and tapped the front where a digital clock was glowing blue. 'I was thinking, the timer in this might be a better bet. The electronics are easier to deal with. It'll be easier to set, too.'
'Have you used one before?'
'Sure.'
Green-eyes nodded thoughtfully. 'Okay. Whatever.'
'Andy unplugged the video recorder from the mains supply and then disconnected it from the television. Green-eyes held the door open for her as she carried it out.
Green-eyes looked around the room, shrugged, and followed her down the corridor.