Andy stood in the middle of the hotel room, looking around. She had to do something. She had to let Martin know what was happening. She'd wanted to say more to him on the phone the previous night, but couldn't take the risk that someone had been listening in. But now she was preparing to check out of the hotel, and she realised that it might be the last opportunity she had to get a message to her husband. She had to let him know where she was going, because if anything went wrong it might be the only way he could find out where Katie was. She thought of leaving a message in the room, but even if she addressed it to Martin the chambermaid might open it, and if she realised its significance she'd probably pass it on to the police. And there was a possibility that the people who had kidnapped Katie might be preparing to search her room after she checked out. If they found a letter, there was no saying what they might do to Katie.
Above the writing desk was a framed watercolour of a gondola on a canal, the colours all hazy as if viewed through a mist. Andy stared at the picture. There had to be something she could do to let Martin know where she was going. Suddenly she knew exactly what she had to do. She sat down at the desk and opened the leather writing folder that was embossed with the hotel's name. There were several sheets of writing paper, and a ballpoint pen. She began to write furiously.
It was just after nine when she walked up to the cashier's desk. A blonde receptionist with shocking-pink lipstick and matching nail varnish took her credit card and printed out a copy of the bill. 'Anything from the mini-bar?' she asked, and Andy shook her head. She pretended to check the printout while she had a quick look around to see if anyone was looking at her. An old couple were sitting on a sofa close to the door, and half a dozen Japanese tourists were pulling brochures off a rack. A businessman in a dark blue suit was checking in, his briefcase at his feet like an attentive Labrador, and a woman in a fur coat was using one of the house phones. No one appeared to be paying Andy any attention. She slid an envelope from inside her jacket, put it on top of the print-out and slid them both across the counter to the receptionist.
'Could you do me a favour?' asked Andy. 'If my husband should pop by in the next few days, could you give this to him?'
The receptionist looked at the envelope. Andy had written 'MARTIN HAYES' in capital letters. 'I could post it, if you like?'
Andy shook her head. 'He's not at home. He's travelling. He had hoped to meet me here but I've got to go up to my parents'. She nodded at the envelope. 'It's not really that important. If he doesn't call for it, you can throw it away.'
'No problem,' said the receptionist. She gave Andy a credit card slip to sign and put the envelope in a drawer. Andy left the hotel. She followed the instructions she'd been given the previous evening and carried her suitcase into the multi storey carpark. The blue Transit van was on the third floor. There was a sign on the side that said 'CITY LANDSCAPING', and underneath it an 0181 telephone number. Andy put her suitcase on the floor by the rear doors. A man in a blue suit and a red tie drove by in a BMW. Andy wondered if she was being watched, if someone had followed her from the hotel. She'd looked around a couple of times but the streets were too crowded for her to have picked anyone out.
Another car drove by, a grey Volvo hatchback. Then there was silence. Andy reached out and turned the door handle. She'd half expected, hoped maybe, that it would be locked, but it turned easily and she pulled open the door and threw her suitcase in. She took a last look around the carpark and then climbed in after the suitcase.
She sat down and scanned the metal floor of the van. There was no sign of a hood. She took the typed letter out of her jacket pocket and reread it. A black hood. There should be a black hood. She got down on her hands and knees and checked the corners, right up to the seats at the front. There was no hood. Had she got the wrong van? No, of course not. It was blue, it was a Transit, and it was on the third floor. And it had the name of a landscaping firm on the side. It had to be the right van. She crawled over to the suitcase and lifted it up. The hood was underneath it. She felt a sudden surge of relief. So long as everything went as planned, then she'd get her daughter back. It was like a long line of dominoes, standing on end – they all had to be in the right place so that when they were pushed, they'd all fall down. The hood was one of the dominoes, and the fact that it was there reassured her. It was going to be all right. Katie was safe.
She pulled the door closed behind her and locked it. The hood was made of some sort of woollen material with a drawstring around the open end, like a bag that might be used to hold shoes. She held it to her nose and sniffed. It smelt like a new cardigan. It didn't feel particularly thick, but even so she was worried about how easy it would be to breathe through. The kidnappers had planned everything down to the last detail, but she doubted that they'd have put the bag over their own heads to try it out. She slowly pulled it on, then put her hands on the drawstring. She couldn't bring herself to tighten the bag around the neck. After taking a few deep breaths to steady her nerves, she sat back against the side of the van and drew her knees up to her chest.
Time seemed to crawl by. Andy tried counting off the seconds, then the minutes, but after a while her mind began to wander. She started counting again, but soon lost interest. It didn't matter whether they made her sit in the van for minutes, hours or days, she had no alternative but to wait. She was in their hands. She tried to think of happier times. Birthdays. Christmasses. Just lying on the bed, Martin next to her, Katie curled up between them, smiling in her sleep. Martin giving Katie horsey rides, prowling around the sitting room on his hands and knees, Katie lying on his back, her arms around his neck.
Andy stiffened at the sound of a key being inserted into the driver's side door, then a double click as the door locks opened. There was a pause, then the driver's door opened.
'Have you got the hood on?' A man's voice. Deep. Guttural, as if he were trying to disguise it.
'Yes,' said Andy, hesitantly.
'Lie down on the floor, face down.'
Andy did as she was told, folding her arms and resting her chin on her hands. She felt the van lurch as the man climbed in. The passenger side door opened and another man got in. Two clunks as the doors closed, then the engine started.
They drove out of the carpark and made a series of turns in quick succession. Andy had no idea in which direction they were heading. More turns. Lots of traffic, the loud hiss of air brakes, a far-off siren. They stopped. A minute later and they were off again. More turns, then a sudden acceleration. They drove in a straight line for a long time, so Andy figured they were on a motorway. They seemed to be travelling for hours, but as she didn't know how fast they were going she had no way of knowing how far from London they were. She wanted to go to the toilet and cursed herself for not using the lavatory before she left the hotel.
The hood made it difficult to breathe, but she found that by turning her head to the side and pushing her cheek along the floor, she could create enough space around her chin to suck in fresher air.
Eventually she heard the sound of the indicator, and they turned off the motorway. More turns, a curve that felt like a right turn at a roundabout, then a series of further turns. The driver changed down through the gears. Third. Second. First. Then a sharp turn to the left and the tyres were crunching over a rough surface. She jumped as the driver sounded the horn, then there was a loud metallic rattling noise from somewhere in front of the van. They edged forward and the rattling noise was repeated, this time from behind them. A gate maybe? Andy lay still, not daring to move. She didn't know if the men were looking at her or not.
The van doors opened and the two men got out, and a few seconds later they opened the rear doors. 'Out you come,' said one. Andy didn't think it was the driver who'd spoken earlier.
She crawled towards the sound of his voice and then hands reached for her, holding her arms and pulling her out. Her knees banged against the ground, making her wince, and she scrambled to her feet. The men gave her no time to regain her balance and frogmarched her away from the van. Their footsteps echoed, making Andy think that they might be inside a large building.
The two men holding her came to a sudden stop and they both tightened their grip on her arms. They turned her to the side, then forced her down. She thought they were pushing her to the floor, but then she felt something on the back of her legs and realised that they were making her sit on a chair. They let go of her arms and she heard them move a few steps away from her. She strained to hear through the hood. Two men, breathing heavily. But she was sure there was someone else near by. It wasn't so much that she could hear the third person, it was more as if she could sense his presence. Andy waited, her hands in her lap, her head down, her eyes closed, breathing steadily. She had to stay calm.
She tilted her head as she heard one of the men move, then she felt a tug at the hood. She blinked as the bag was ripped off her head. A man sat in front of her, a man wearing a ski mask and baggy blue overalls. In front of him, were a notepad and a cheap plastic Biro. Andy already had her speech rehearsed – she'd been going over it in her mind all the time she'd been in the van.
'Look, please don't harm Katie. We'll give you whatever you want. Just let her go and we'll do exactly as you say. You have me now, my husband will give you just as much for me as he will for Katie, so you might as well let her go.'
The man in the ski mask stared at her with unblinking green eyes, saying nothing.
'He will, you know. He's already told me that he's got the money ready, and he'll pay. However much you want. So you might as well let Katie go. You can keep me here for as long as you want. Okay?' Andy heard the words tumbling out of her mouth as if they belonged to somebody else.
The green eyes stared back at her. Andy suddenly realised that there was mascara on the lashes. It wasn't a man, it was a woman. She heard a chuckling over her shoulder and she looked around. A large man with a wrestler's build was laughing at her. Like the woman, he had on a black ski mask that revealed nothing other than his eyes and part of his mouth, and was wearing similar blue overalls which were strained tight against his barrel-like chest. Next to the burly man was a taller, gangly man, also in a black ski mask and overalls. He was wearing pristine white Nike training shoes.
'Have you finished?' asked Green-eyes.
Andy whirled around to face her. 'What?'
'Have you said all you want to say?' said the woman. A Scottish accent, but there was a hint of Northern Irish, too. 'Are you ready to listen?'
Andy swallowed and nodded.
'You're free to go if you want, Andrea. We're armed but we're not going to hurt you. The guns are in case… well, let's just say they're insurance. If you stay, it's going to be your choice. But if you go, you'll never see your daughter again.'
'Katie's okay?'
'Katie's just fine. And so long as you do as we say, she'll stay that way. If everything goes to plan, you'll be back with her and your husband within a week or so.' Her voice was soft and persuasive, as if she were selling life insurance and not threatening the life of Andy's only child.
'How much do you want?' asked Katie.
Green-eyes shook her head slowly. 'Hasn't the penny dropped yet, Andrea? Haven't you figured it out?'
Andy looked at her, not understanding. 'What is you want? If it's not money, what do you want?'
Green-eyes put her gloved hands flat on the table, either side of the notepad and pen. 'Why, Andrea, we want you to do what you do best. We want you to build us a bomb. A very large bomb.'
– «»-«»-«»Martin sat at his desk, staring at his computer screen. He barely noticed the spreadsheet in front of him. All he could think about was his wife and daughter. He'd arrived at the office at eight o'clock, thinking that Andy might telephone him before she checked out of the hotel. She didn't. The kidnappers hadn't called either. His phone rang and he picked it up. It was Jill, his secretary. 'Martin, it's a Mrs O'Mara,' she said. 'She's from Katie's school.'
'Okay, Jill, put her through.' There was a click, then the woman was on the line. She was the headmistress's secretary, calling to see why Katie wasn't at school.
Martin thought quickly. If he said Katie was sick, the woman might ask for a doctor's note. An unexpected holiday wouldn't be an acceptable excuse. Besides, it would be very unlikely that Andy and Katie would have gone on holiday without him. 'It's my wife's mother, Mrs O'Mara. I'm afraid she's had a bit of a fall and my wife has had to go up to Belfast and see her. We didn't have anyone to take care of Katie because I'm up to my eyes in work here. We thought it best if Katie went with my wife. It'll only be for a few days.'
He regretted the lie immediately. It was just about possible that the school had Andy's mother's name and address on file, and all it would take would be one phone call to prove him a liar.
'It's very irregular, Mr Hayes,' said the woman frostily.
'I know, and I apologise for that,' said Martin. 'I should have called you yesterday.'
'Do you know when we can expect to see Katie again?'
Martin wished that he did know. 'I would think three days. Maybe four. If it's any longer, I'll be sure to let you know, Mrs O'Mara.'
'And your mother-in-law, how is she?'
'Poorly. She's in her seventies, so any sort of fall is dangerous.' Martin was surprised at how easily the lies were coming.
'Well, I hope she gets better soon,' said Mrs O'Mara.
'We all do,' agreed Martin.
When he put the receiver down, his hand was shaking.
– «»-«»-«»'You're crazy,' said Andy. 'Why would you think…'
Green-eyes silenced her by holding up a gloved hand. Then she wagged her finger at Andy, side to side, like a parent warning a child not to misbehave. 'You're wasting your time, Andrea. We know everything. We know who you are and we know what you are. We're not asking you to do something you haven't done a hundred times before.'
Andy slumped back in her chair and stared at the masked woman. It felt as if all the blood had drained from her head. She tried to speak but no words would come.
Green-eyes bent down and pulled a briefcase out from under the table. She placed it on top, her eyes never leaving Andy's face as she clicked open the two locks. Click-clack, like the sound of a bullet being chambered. She opened the case, took out a large manila envelope, and tossed it casually in front of Andy.
'What's this?' asked Andy.
Green-eyes nodded at the envelope. Andy opened it and took out a dozen or so sheets of paper. They were photocopies of newspaper cuttings. Andy flicked through them. They were a mixture of Irish and English newspapers -tabloids and broadsheets. Andy scanned the headlines. BELFAST STORE DESTROYED. BOMB ON MAIN LINE, TRAINS DELAYED. BOMB DISPOSAL EXPERT KILLED. FIRE IN DEPARTMENT STORE, IRA BLAMED. TWO SOLDIERS DIE IN BOMB BLAST.
'Great reviews, huh?' said the lanky man. He chuckled and looked across at Green-eyes. Even through the ski mask he could see the warning look she threw at him and his laughter dried up. Green-eyes waited until he was silent and fidgeting with his gloves before turning back to Andy.
Andy stared at the photocopied cuttings. 'If you know everything, then you know why I can't do what you want.'
Green-eyes reached into her briefcase again and took out a piece of newspaper. She unfolded it. It was the front page of the Belfast Telegraph, ripped along one edge as if it had been torn in a hurry. There were four black-and-white photographs of small boys in school uniforms, smiling at the camera. Just heads and shoulders, the type that might have been stored in a school's files. The headline was brutal in its simplicity. IRA BOMB KILLS FOUR SCHOOLBOYS.
Andy turned her head away.
'Squeamish?' said Green-eyes. 'I wouldn't have thought of you as the squeamish type.' She put the page down in front of Andy. 'Read it, Andrea.'
Andy shook her head. 'I don't have to.' She knew every word, almost by heart, and the four young faces were burnt into her memory, seared there for all time. Four boys. Three aged ten, one just weeks away from his tenth birthday. His mother had already paid for the bicycle he was getting as his main present. Four boys killed, another one in intensive care who would later lose a leg and the sight of one eye. For weeks his life had hung in the balance, and Andy had followed his recovery in the paper and on the television. She'd never understood why she'd prayed so hard for the boy to live. Four dead. Five dead. There was no difference morally, not really. But Andy had seen the crying mother on television, condemning the IRA and anyone who helped them and appealing for information. Four dead. One maimed. Innocents. And Andy was to blame. She'd carry the guilt with her to the grave.
Green-eyes pushed the page towards her. 'We're not asking you to do something you haven't already done, Andrea.'
Andy closed her eyes and shook her head. 'That was a mistake. A terrible mistake.'
'Casualties of war, the IRA High Command called it. But they never apologised, did they? Even though they were all good Catholic children. Two of them were altar boys, weren't they?'
Andy put her hands over her face and slumped forward so that her elbows were resting on the table. 'Is that what this is, revenge for what happened ten years ago? Who are you?'
'It doesn't matter who we are. All that matters is that we have your daughter. That's all you need to think about. We have Katie. We have the power of life and death over her, Andrea. But the decision as to what happens next is totally in your hands. Do as we say and you'll soon have her back home. Refuse, and you'll never see her again. We're not holding a gun to your head, we're not going to torture you or hurt you, all…'
'You don't think this is hurting?' hissed Andy.
Green-eyes tapped the newspaper page. 'I can promise you something else, Andrea,' she said quietly. 'We won't be hurting children this time. There won't be any mistake, no innocents killed. A lot of thought, a lot of planning, has gone into this. We won't be leaving a holdall in a railway tunnel for children to find.'
Andy shook her head again. 'I can't.'
'Yes, you can,' said Green-eyes firmly. 'You can, and if you want Katie back, you will.' She took a small padded envelope from the briefcase and handed it to Andy.
Andy took it, frowning. It felt empty, but it had been sealed.
'Open it,' said Green-eyes.
Andy slid a nail under the flap and ripped it open. She pushed the sides together to open the mouth of the envelope and peered inside. 'Oh no,' she whispered. She tipped the envelope up and shook out the contents. Blond curls. A handful. Andy could tell from the length that they'd been cut close to the scalp. 'Not her hair,' she said. 'She's so proud of her hair.' She looked at Green-eyes, tears trickling down her cheeks. 'How could you do that to a little girl? How could you cut her hair?'
Green-eyes leaned forward slowly until her masked face was only inches away from Andy. 'It could have been an ear. Andrea. Or a finger. Think about that.' She stared at Andy for several seconds, then visibly relaxed. She motioned at her two companions, and they stepped forward and seized Andy by the arms. The hair and envelope tumbled from Andy's grasp.
'No!' she shouted. She pointed at the blond curls. Please,' she said.
Green-eyes walked around the table, scooped up the hair clippings and put them back in the envelope, which she then slotted into the back pocket of Andy's jeans before the two men hustled her away from the table. The men took her to the far corner of the factory where there was a cluster of offices, large white plasterboard cubes with cheap wooden doors that looked as if they'd been brought in as an afterthought. The men spun Andy around so that her back was to one of the plasterboard walls. Green-eyes appeared in front of her with a Polaroid camera in her gloved hands.
'Smile, Andrea,' she said.
Andy stared at her in disbelief. 'Smile?'
'For the camera.'
Andy forced a thin smile and blinked as the camera flashed and whirred. The two men hustled her away down a narrow corridor that ran between the two lines of offices.
– «»-«»-«»Egan used a Stanley knife to slit the black garbage bags along the sides, then he pulled them open into single sheets of plastic. It took five to line the boot of the Scorpio, and he used thick strips of waterproof tape to seal them together. He slit open another three bags and taped them together into a single sheet, then put it and the tape into the boot.
Back in the apartment he checked the action of his Browning, slotted in a clipful of cartridges and gave the silencer a thorough cleaning.
He had taken a risk planting the listening device in Martin Hayes's office. He'd gone in at night, having disabled the burglar alarm system, and it had taken a full six hours from start to finish. It had proved to be time well spent, though. If it hadn't been for the office device, he'd never have known about Mrs O'Mara's phone call.
Egan could tell from the recording that the school secretary wasn't the sort to be deterred by Hayes's clumsy explanation of his daughter's absence. He'd have to do something to silence the meddlesome woman. And quickly.
It had taken just one telephone call to the school's personnel office, pretending to be an official of the Revenue Commissioners wanting to check her employment details, and Egan had all the information he needed.
– «»-«»-«»Katie was sitting at the Formica-covered table when she heard the bolts slide back. She looked up apprehensively, wondering which of her captors it was. It was the man who'd been nice to her, the one who'd given her Garfield. He was carrying a tray.
'Are you hungry?' he asked as he carefully made his way down the stairs.
Katie wasn't, but she said that she was. He placed the tray on the table in front of her. It was scrambled eggs on a paper plate and a paper cup of milk. She smiled up at him. 'Thank you,' she said.
'I wasn't sure how you liked your eggs,' he said. 'I'm sorry if they're too runny.'
'They're fine,' said Katie. They weren't, they looked horrible, pale yellow and watery, but she wanted to be nice to him. If she was nice to him then maybe he'd be nice to her. She picked up the plastic fork and took a small bite of the eggs. 'Delicious,' she said.
The Nice Man headed for the stairs, but then turned and looked across at her. 'Is there anything you like to eat? I'll try to get it for you.'
'Heinz tomato soup. And fish fingers.'
'Same as my kids.'
'You've got children?'
The Nice Man went stiff, as if she'd said the wrong thing. Then he turned around and went up the stairs without saying anything else. Katie looked down at the eggs in disgust. They tasted horrible.
She wondered what the Nice Man looked like underneath his mask. She was sure of one thing – he'd be better-looking than the other man, the man who'd cut her hair. He'd been really rough with her as if he'd wanted to hurt her. He was ugly. Really ugly. Katie hoped with all her heart that the Ugly Man wouldn't come down the stairs again.
– «»-«»-«»Andy sat on the floor with her back to the wall. The padded envelope was in her lap. In her hands, she held the locks of Katie's hair. There was a lot of hair. Clumps of it. Big clumps. Someone had savaged Katie's head. There'd probably be bald patches. Poor, poor Katie. She had always been so proud of her hair. Every night, before she went to sleep, she would sit in front of her dressing-table mirror, brushing her blond locks a hundred times. She'd loved it when Andy had brushed it for her. Katie would count the strokes, and wouldn't let Andy get away with even one less than the hundred.
They'd left her in a disused office. Bare white walls, faded blue carpet tiles on the floor, polystyrene tiles on the ceiling. Two fluorescent tubes filled the office with a clinical white light. They hadn't locked the door. There was no need. She couldn't run because if she ran she'd never see her daughter again. She was as trapped as if they'd chained her to the floor.
Andy lifted the hair to her face and gently sniffed it, inhaling Katie's fragrance. She closed her eyes and imagined that her face was up against her daughter's neck. God, had it been just thirty-six hours ago? Less than two days? Two days in which her life had been turned upside down.
Who were they, these people? Terrorists? Why else would they want a bomb? Could they be Irish? The only one who'd said anything at length was the woman, and the more Andy listened to her, the more she was sure there was an Irish accent mixed with Scottish. But that didn't mean anything. They could be Provisional Irish Republican Army. Or INLA. Or any of the Republican splinter groups like Real IRA or Continuity IRA. But then why would they need her? The IRA had their own explosives experts, experts who were far more up to date than Andy was. And if it was the IRA, why the kidnapping? She knew most of the members of the Army Council by name, and they knew her. They could have summoned her before them at any time over the past decade and she would have gone. Maybe not willingly, but she would have gone. So if not the IRA, then who? The Protestants? The Ulster Defence Volunteers? The Ulster Volunteer Force? The Ulster Freedom Fighters? Or maybe one of the fringe terrorist groups, the Orange Volunteers or the Red Hand Defenders. The Protestant groups were less able to mount major bombing campaigns because they didn't have the IRA's technical expertise or access to equipment. Was that what this was all about? Did the Protestants want her to build a bomb for them? Or was someone else behind the kidnapping? Someone else who wanted a bomb built in England. A very big bomb, Green-eyes had said. Andy wondered how big. As big as the bomb the IRA had used at Canary Wharf in 1995, the bomb that had caused almost a billion pounds of damage? Is that what they wanted from her? And if it was, could Andy do it? Could she give them a bomb in exchange for Katie?
Andy lost all track of time as she sat on the floor, holding Katie's curls next to her cheek. Eventually the door to the office opened and the two men walked across to where she was sitting and grabbed an arm each. The bigger one she thought of as the Wrestler, while the thinner man with the gleaming white Nike trainers was the Runner. Both were still wearing the blue overalls and black ski masks. The Wrestler had put on a black nylon shoulder holster from which protruded the butt of a large automatic.
'Okay, okay,' said Andy. 'You don't have to be so rough.'
Her captors said nothing, though the Runner dug his gloved fingers even deeper into her flesh. Andy pulled her arm away and shoved the handful of hair into the pocket of her jacket. The men pulled her through the doorway and along the corridor to the main factory area. The woman was already sitting at the far side of the table, her arms at rest, her gloved fingers interlinked. She watched with unblinking green eyes as the two men pushed Andy down on to the chair then stood behind her, arms folded.
There was a notepad and pen in front of the woman. Next to the pad was a pistol, the barrel of which was pointing towards Andy. The woman picked up the pen and began to tap it on the pad. 'So, Andrea, have you had enough time to think it over?'
'You're crazy,' said Andy. 'You're asking for the impossible.'
The green eyes seemed to harden fractionally. 'Let me be quite clear about this, Andrea. You are not the only option. If you don't want to co-operate, we'll use someone else.' She paused for effect. 'But you'll never see Katie again.'
Andy said nothing. The woman sighed, then pushed back her chair and began to stand up. 'No…' said Andy. The woman sat down again. She waited for Andy to speak, the pen poised in her gloved hand.
'Look, it's not as easy as you seem to think,' said Andy eventually. 'It's not just a question of mixing a few chemicals. There's specialised equipment…'
'We can get everything you need,' said the woman.
'But even if you were to make the explosives, you still have to detonate the bomb. It's not like setting off a firework – you don't just light the blue touch-paper.'
'Don't patronise me,' said the woman, coldly. 'I've set bombs before.'
'Then why do you need me?' asked Andy quickly.
The woman tapped the pen on the notepad. She looked up at the Wrestler. 'Take her back to…'
'It's okay, it's okay,' interrupted Andy. 'I'll do it.'
The woman stared at Andy for several seconds, then nodded slowly. 'What will you need?' she asked. Her pen was poised over the notebook.
Andy swallowed. Her mouth was unbearably dry. She didn't want to do this but she had no other choice. If she didn't co-operate, if she didn't tell them what they wanted to know, then she knew without a shadow of a doubt that they'd carry out their threat. Katie would die. She swallowed again. 'What sort of bomb are you talking about? A letter bomb? A car bomb? What are you planning to do with it?'
'We want a fertiliser bomb. A big one.'
'How big?'
Green-eyes said nothing for a few seconds. She tapped her pen on her notepad. 'Four thousand pounds,' she said eventually.
'Four thousand pounds? That's almost two tons. No one's ever made a two-ton fertiliser bomb before.'
'So we'll get you into the Guinness Book of Records,' said Green-eyes.
'How are you going to move it?' asked Andy. 'That's a truck-load of explosive.'
'You can leave the logistics to us. All you're concerned about is the building of the device.'
Andy shook her head. 'You could blow up a small town with a bomb that big. I can't be responsible for something like that.' She leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. 'I can't.'
Green-eyes' lips tightened. 'If you can't, we'll get someone else. But you know what that means.'
Andy put her hands up to her face. 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph,' she whispered.
'Whatever,' said Green-eyes. 'The major component is ammonium nitrate fertiliser,' she said. 'Correct?'
Andy nodded.
'We already have that,' said Green-eyes. 'Fifteen hundred kilos. Do you work in kilos, or pounds?'
'Pounds,' said Andy. Ireland used the metric system but she'd been born in Belfast, in the north of the country, and most of the time she still thought in pounds and ounces, miles and gallons.
'So we have just over three thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate fertiliser. Will that be enough?'
Andy shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. 'What?'
'Please try to focus, Andrea,' said Green-eyes. 'We don't have all day.'
'It depends.'
'On what?'
Andy shook her head again. It was all too much for her to take in. She put both hands up to her temples and massaged them, it's complicated.'
'I appreciate it's a complicated process, Andrea. That's why we need you.'
Andy cupped her hands around her chin. 'Where are you planning on building it?'
'That's none of your concern.'
'Yes it is. That's what I mean about it being complicated. You need pure ammonium nitrate, but you can't buy it in Northern Ireland. At least, you can buy it, but it's not pure. The government's not stupid – they know what the pure chemical can be used for, so in Ireland you can only buy it mixed with other stuff. Bonemeal, potash, the sort of stuff farmers need. The pure stuff isn't for sale to the public, and if you order it, you'll be checked out. So if you're building it in Northern Ireland, you've got to buy tons of common-or-garden fertiliser and boil off the impurities. It would take for ever to get two tons of pure ammonium nitrate.'
'What about in the UK?'
'That's different. Is that what you're planning? A bomb here in England?'
The woman ignored Andy's question. 'How much would we need? Is three thousand pounds enough?'
Andy tried to concentrate. A four-thousand-pound fertiliser bomb. The fertiliser accounted for eighty per cent of the mixture. Eighty per cent of four thousand. Three thousand two hundred. She nodded. 'That should be okay, give or take.'
The woman pointed at the far corner of the factory with her pen. Andy turned her head to look. A green tarpaulin covered a mound almost three feet tall. Next to the mound were a dozen large conifers in black plastic pots and several boxes of smaller plants. 'You can check it yourself later. What else?'
'Hang on,' said Andy. 'You can't just use it straight from the sack. It's got to be prepared.'
'And how do we do that?'
'Even if it's sold as pure, there'll still be some impurities and you've got to get rid of them first. You have to mix it with alcohol, then strain off the liquid.'
'So how much alcohol will we need?'
Andy did the calculation in her head. 'Assuming you reuse it a few times, a hundred gallons or so. The more the better. It's got to be denatured alcohol. It's used as paint thinner or antifreeze.'
'Where do we get it from?'
'Any biggish paint suppliers should have some.'
'What would happen if we didn't use the alcohol?'
'It might not go off.'
The woman nodded. 'What equipment will you need, to purify the fertiliser?'
'Large containers. Plastic or glass. Stirrers. Wooden or plastic. Then something to heat the mixture. Electric woks are good.'
'How many?'
'The more you have, the faster you can process it. Every pound of fertiliser has to be mixed with alcohol, then heated for three or four minutes. Say you do five pounds at a time. Three thousand pounds could take a full two days, working around the clock.'
'Two days?'
'It's a big job. You don't seem to understand how big a job it is.'
'So, if we can get six woks going, it'll take eight hours?'
'That's right. But it's hard work. And you have to have someone stirring all the time. It's a sort of stir-fry job, you know.'
'So, four. There'll be four of us, so four woks. What else?'
'Electric coffee grinders. I'd get four of them, too.'
'Four it is.'
Andy sat back and folded her arms. 'What are you going to do with it? The bomb?'
'That's not your concern.'
'Well, it is, sort of. There are different mixtures for different effects.'
'Whatever's most effective. Whatever'll give us the biggest bang, okay?'
Andy wanted to lie, to give her wrong information or to withhold something vital, something that would render the explosive inert, but she couldn't risk it. She didn't know how much they already knew. This could be a test, and if she failed the test it could be as dangerous as refusing to cooperate. She nodded slowly. 'Aluminium powder,' she said. 'You'll need about six hundred pounds.'
'Where would we get that from?' asked the woman.
'Paint suppliers again,' said Andy. 'The best sort to ask for is pyro grade 400 mesh.' She was surprised how easily the technical terms came to her. It had been years since she'd even thought about the components of a fertiliser bomb. The information belonged to another life, a life she had long ago walked away from.
'It's easy to get?' asked Green-eyes. 'There's not a register or anything?'
Andy shook her head. 'It's got too many uses. No one checks. But you'd be better buying it through a front company, something with decorator in the letterhead. And with that sort of amount, you might be better getting it from several different suppliers.'
"What about the alcohol?'
'It's got lots of legitimate uses, too. I'd buy it from several sources, though.'
The woman scribbled on her pad again.
'Sawdust,' said Andy.
'Sawdust?'
'As fine as possible. Two hundred pounds. Any sawmill will sell it to you. You can say it's for a pet shop. That's what we used to do. And detergent. Sodium dodecyl benzenesulphonate.' She spelled out the words slowly. 'A chemical supplies company will sell you the pure stuff. But almost any soap-based washing powder will do.' The information was all still there, she realised. It always had been, and probably always would be. A shopping list of death, imprinted somewhere in her neural pathways.
'How much will we need?'
'Thirty pounds or so.'
'And?'
'That's it,' said Andy. 'Ammonium nitrate, aluminium powder, sawdust and detergent. You can add diesel oil if you want. It's not vital, but it helps.'
'How much would we need?'
'Ten gallons or so.'
'And what equipment are you going to need?'
'Desiccators.'
'Desiccators?'
'To dry out the fertiliser. It absorbs moisture, and as soon as it's damp it's useless.'
'Are they easy to get?'
Andy shrugged. 'Depends. You might have to order one.'
'Is there anything else we could use?'
'An electric oven. And baking trays, a couple of inches deep.' Andy did a quick calculation in her head. 'One oven will dry about four hundred pounds a day. So it'll take you about eight days working around the clock to do it all.'
'And if we get four ovens – two days, is that right?'
Andy nodded.
'Okay. What else?'
'Respirators. Protective glasses. Overalls. Gloves. Plastic gloves and oven gloves, too.' She steepled her fingers under her chin and furrowed her brow as she thought. It had been a long time. A long, long time, and she wasn't sure if she'd remembered everything. She ran through the processes in her mind. 'Thermometers. Metal ones. And a tumble-drier,' she said. 'Two would be better.'
'This isn't an ideal home exhibition,' said the woman.
'It's for mixing the fertiliser and aluminium powder,' said Andy. 'It's got to be well mixed. We used to pack it in Tupperware containers then put it in a tumble-drier for half an hour or so.'
The woman nodded. 'Innovative,' she said.
'We had to be,' said Andy.
'How many?'
Andy thought for a few seconds. 'Two should do it.'
'Anything else?'
'That's all for the explosives. But the skill is in the preparation. You can't just throw it together.'
'And once we've made it, it's not unstable?'
'You could smash a train into it and it wouldn't go off. In fact, it's only good for a week or so. Maybe two weeks, but after that the fertiliser will have absorbed water again and no matter what you do to it, it won't go off. So you'll need lots of Tupperware containers, the bigger the better. And lots of black plastic rubbish bags. The more you wrap the stuff, the longer it'll take the water to penetrate. And you'll need bags to pack the finished product in. Hundreds of black bags.'
The woman made another note on her pad. Then she looked up. 'Timer?'
'Depends on when you want it to go off. Minutes, hours, days or weeks.'
'Hours.'
'Any small clock will do.'
'What do you prefer?'
'A battery-operated digital model.'
'Any particular brand?'
Andy shrugged. 'Whatever. Can I ask you something?'
'No. What do you pack it in? Oil drums?'
Andy shook her head. 'No. Like I said, we'll use black bags. You have to pack it around the initiator. If it's in barrels the initial explosion might just knock the rest of the barrels over.'
'Okay. Black bags it is. What do you need wiring-wise?'
'Bell wire. Several different colours would help. Soldering iron. Solder. Batteries – 1.5 volts. Torch bulbs and bulb-holders, for circuit testing. Wire. As many different colours as you can get. Look, what are you going to use this for?'
'That's not your concern.'
'Is it against people, or property? I have a right to know.'
The woman put her pen down and looked at Andy, her eyes narrowing under the ski mask. 'We have your daughter, and unless you do exactly as we say, she'll die. I mean that, Andrea. I mean that as sure as I'm sitting here opposite you. The men who are looking after her are taking good care of her, but they're just as capable of putting a bullet in her pretty little head or cutting her throat. This isn't a game, it isn't a joke. You have no rights. You do as you're told or Katie's dead. Do you understand me?'
Andy stared at the woman. It was as if she were the only static thing in the vicinity – everything else was whirling and spinning around her. She tried to speak, but before any words came she felt her stomach heave and her mouth filled with vomit. She twisted around from the table and threw up with loud, gagging gasps. The Wrestler jumped to the side, away from the foul-smelling yellow flow, but it splattered over his legs.
'You stupid cow!' he yelled.
Andy fell to her knees and bent low, her head only inches from the ground as heaving spasms racked her body. Even when her stomach was empty she continued to heave and cough. A glass of water appeared before her and she took it gratefully. She swilled the water around her mouth and then spat it out before drinking deeply. She sat back on her heels and drained the glass. The woman in the ski mask was standing in front of her, her hands on her hips. Andy gave the glass back to her.
She looked around as she squatted on the dusty concrete floor. There were no windows, though there were barred skylights high overhead. Thick metal girders ran below the roof, and suspended from them were winches and lifting equipment. There were thick metal bolts in the floor, as if massive pieces of machinery had once been bolted into place. The place had obviously been used for some form of manufacturing in the past.
Up against one wall was a metal bench, and on it a computer. It looked like an expensive system with a large VDU and a tower unit containing the disk drives. A wire led from the computer to a phone socket. A modem, Andy realised. It had a modem. The Wrestler was using a tissue to wipe his trousers and continuing to curse her under his breath. The Runner took Andy's arm and helped her back on to the chair. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Green-eyes sat down and picked up her pen again. 'Right, are you ready to go on?' she asked.
Andy nodded. She methodically went through everything else they'd need while Green-eyes took notes. When she'd finished, Green-eyes put her pen down on her notepad and nodded at her. 'We'll get most- of this stuff tomorrow morning,' she said. 'We start work the day after that.'
Andy looked around the factory. 'Here?' she asked.
'No. We'll be moving somewhere else.'
'Can you tell me where?'
'Not right now, no. But you'll know soon enough. Let me show you the fertiliser.'
Green-eyes stood up and walked over to the tarpaulin-covered mound. She pulled the green sheet back. Dust billowed around her and she coughed.
Andy went over to the stack of bags and examined the labels. She recognised the brand. It was an English firm, based just outside Oxford. Under the brand name were the words AMMONIUM NITRATE, and below that, in slightly smaller type, the word FERTILISER. To the right were three numbers, separated by hyphens: 34-0-0.
'Okay?' asked Green-eyes.
'It'll do,' said Andy. She'd half hoped that they wouldn't have the correct type of fertiliser, but now she realised that they knew exactly what they were doing. Some manufacturers coated their ammonium nitrate with calcium to stop it from absorbing water. But the calcium coating rendered the fertiliser useless as an explosive base. Other fertilisers were a mixture of chemicals, perhaps containing ammonium sulphate or urea. Only pure ammonium nitrate would explode, and that was what Green-eyes was showing her. The numbers on the bag referred to the ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash. Only pure ammonium nitrate had the ratio 34-0-0. There were other sacks, too, containing compost. Andy pointed at one of the compost bags. 'What are you planning to do with that? Compost isn't explosive.'
Green-eyes ignored her.
'Why are you doing this?' Andy asked.
'Why do you care? You've done it before.'
'That was a long time ago. A lifetime ago.'
'Like riding a bike,' said Green-eyes. 'As soon as you get back in the saddle, it'll be as if you never gave it up.' She motioned to the Runner, and he came over and took Andy by the arm, leading her like a naughty child back to the office.
– «»-«»-«»Mick Canning pushed the trolley down the aisle, scanning the rows of canned goods. He stopped by the soups section and took half a dozen cans of Heinz tomato soup off the shelves. He added a few cans of baked beans and spaghetti hoops to his trolley, sticking to the Heinz brand. He knew that children applied the same brand awareness to their food as they did to their clothing. Training shoes had to be Nike, Reebok or Adidas, beans had to be Heinz, fish fingers had to be Bird's Eye, cornflakes had to be Kellogg's. Anything else resulted in sneers and pushed-away plates. Canning's own children weren't much older than the Hayes girl – his son was eight and his daughter nine. He hadn't seen either for almost three months; they were living in Larne with their mother. Canning and his wife had separated, and the last letter he'd received from her solicitor made it clear that she wanted a divorce. And the house. In exchange, she was offering him unlimited access to the children, though she was insisting that they live with her. Canning knew there was no point in arguing, either with her or her solicitor. He was resigned to becoming a part-time father, but figured that being a part-time father was better than being no father at all.
Canning paid in cash and took the carrier bags out to the carpark and loaded them into the boot of the Ford Mondeo. He turned on the radio and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove. If everything went to plan, it would all be over within two weeks. The Hayes girl would be back with her parents, Canning would have the rest of the hundred thousand pounds he'd been promised for the job, and he'd be able to get his soon-to-be-ex-wife and her money-grabbing solicitor off his back.
– «»-«»-«»Laura O'Mara jumped as the doorbell rang. The clock on the mantelpiece said it was a quarter past seven, and she wasn't expecting visitors. She put her knitting on the coffee table and turned down the volume of the television set, then peered through the lace curtains. An expensive car, a black saloon, was parked in the road outside her house. She didn't know anyone with a black car. She went over to the door and slid the security chain home. Since her husband had died four years earlier, she'd always taken great care not to let strangers into the house. The newspapers were full of stories about old women being mugged for their life savings. Not that Laura O'Mara considered herself old. She was fifty-nine, and her own mother was still active and living alone, and she was in her mid-eighties. Nor did Laura O'Mara keep her life savings in her two-up, two-down cottage. She was too smart an investor for that. Her savings were tucked away in tax-efficient bonds and unit trusts, and she even had several thousand pounds in a Guernsey bank account, safe from the prying eyes of the taxman. But she did have some valuable porcelain, and she knew that children these days would smash up a person's house for the thrill of it. She eased open the door, keeping a reassuring hand on the lock.
A man in a suit smiled down at her, wire-framed spectacles perched on the end of his nose. 'Mrs O'Mara?'
She frowned. The illicit bank account sprang to mind, and she felt herself blush.
The man looked at a clipboard he was carrying, then smiled again. He had even white teeth, she noticed, not a filling in his mouth. Mrs O'Mara's own teeth betrayed a childhood of sweets and adult years filled with smoking and coffee-drinking. She self-consciously put her hand up to cover her mouth as she returned his smile.
'My name's Peter Cordingly,' he said. 'I'm with Dublin City social services.'
He had an Irish accent, but it wasn't local. It was as if he'd spent some time away from Ireland, smoothing out the peaks and troughs so that his accent was somehow vague and hard to pin down. A bit like the man himself, thought Mrs O'Mara. He was a pleasant enough chap, but not particularly good-looking, with a bland, squarish face, and apart from the glasses he didn't have any distinguishing features.
'I understand you've expressed concerns about one of the children at your school.' He looked at the clipboard again, pushing the spectacles further up his nose with his index finger. 'Katie Hayes?'
'Oh, I only called her father. She was away without permission and…'
The man held up a hand to silence her and leaned forward conspiratorially. 'Mrs O'Mara, could I come in and have a word with you about this?' He looked left and right as if he feared being overheard. 'What I have to say is a wee bit… confidential.'
'Oh my,' said Mrs O'Mara. She unhooked the security chain and pulled the door open, eager to hear what it was exactly that Mr Hayes had done, all thoughts about the dangers of strangers totally forgotten.