text:
List death Revenge List INSERT MOUSE ACTION!!!!!!!! DIALOGUE!!!!! Sat 16276 Fri 11th 14777 Thur 10th 13793 Tues 8th Jul 12140 Sat 5/7 10360 Fri 10121 1010 WORDS Mon 9273 WORDS SUN Valentina1.01. 330 per page 83 Valentina and Dimitri looked at the boat and weren"t too pleased. "Do you think it"s OK?" she asked. It was a simple speedboat but love had been absent from its life for a long time. Paint was peeling, the outboard motor seemed to be held on by a thick piece of wire but it was the driver that gave the both the most pause – he couldn"t have been more than 12. After a moment they looked at each other and, with a slight shrug, accepted their fate. The hotel had found them the boat and the hotel had been nothing but excellent to date. "I guess we"ll live," said Dimitri with a little laugh. "It"s only a short ride." Duc, the boy, looked up at them and wondered about foreigners. They always seemed to stop and look at his boat with worry, but he knew it well. And by now he knew the foreigners well too. Fifteen years old, he had been on the sea all his life. His father had allowed him to take the controls of this little craft when he was less than five and now controlling it, maintaining it, understanding it were all second nature to him. He knew it was sound, that the motor was secure, but he knew the tourists he ferried around the islands in Nha Trang bay came from a very different, much softer world. To grow up in Vietnam was no easy path, but Duc was happy. He knew no other life and he loved his little boat. "I help you on board," said Duc with a bright smile. And, with the sea calm and the air hot and still, Valentina and Dimitri stepped just a little timidly into their boat. * * * The ride to Kangaroo Island took just 15 minutes. By the time they were nearing the island Valentina was in an almost hypnotised state. With nothing to do but enjoy the journey she had quietened after the first few minutes of chat and the boy and her lover had allowed her to find a moment or two of peace. As the boat sped across the water, it jumped and bucked a little as it hit small waves but the effect was still restful. The boy, sensing their unease, took his time and only opened the throttle half way. The sun sparkled on the water and, apart from a couple of other small speed boats, a decrepit local ferry and a couple of couple of fishing boats on the horizon, they were alone. For some reason Valentina found herself thinking about her father, their flight to America when she was six. It had been a strange and frightening place but she had become happy there, happier perhaps than she deserved she thought. "Perhaps I am free of it at last," but as the words formed in her mind she knew it wasn"t true. The hell of the last six months was not yet over. "Soon," she thought, "soon it will be over." It was almost a prayer and her prayer was about to be answered. * * * Dan and Jochem had been in one of the boats that Valentina had casually noticed. It was as untidy and unloved as Duc"s. The only difference, if anyone had looked closely, was that the engine was brand new. Dan had decided that a new engine was a small extravagance worth splashing out on to ensure the smooth running of this mission. He had never, ever, commanded such a cheap operation so the $3,000 for the engine was – pardon the pun – a drop on the ocean. Mike, their Chicago born Vietnamese operative had called them early that morning saying that Valentina planned to go to the islands by boat. Chevy, the Argentinian, had befriended the couple and had carefully planted the idea that the snorkelling was so good it should not be missed. All Dan had to do was wait for the expedition to take place. With only two days of Valentina"s holiday left he was just starting to get nervous and had been outlining less elegant solutions when the call had come. Surveillance in Nha Trang was unbelievably simple. Apart from Mike, Dan had two other Vietnamese men posing as Xe Om or motor cycle taxi riders. There had been little trouble – a small tax had to be paid to some local gang - but the monthly fee was less than a good cup of coffee would have cost in London or New York. Yes his finances were doing very nicely thank you! The two fake Xe Om operators took it in turns to park opposite the Sunrise Beach Resort Hotel. With no effort at all, they merged invisibly with the real drivers. There were always three or four, waiting for fares, trying to pimp a local hooker or sell a little hash, but most of the long, hot, languid days the Xe Om drivers just dozed or chatted and that is Dan"s drivers did. Except when they dozed they were faking it and when they chatted they kept a good eye on the front door. Not one guest got into a taxi without Dan"s operatives knowing whether or not it was the young couple. Funnily, none of the Xe Om noticed that the two new arrivals never seemed to get a fare, or at least, if they noticed, they didn"t care. The older of the two, a taciturn intellectual thug called Mung from Hanoi, had tailed Valentina and Dimitri to the harbour and called Dan up with the description of the couple"s boat and all he had to do was wait near Kangaroo Island for them to arrive. "Time to suit up," he said and Jochem began getting into his wet suit. He looked down at the rather comical woollen gloves in the bottom of the boat. "A nice touch," he thought. * * * Valentina was ecstatic. Why had she waited so long to come out here, she wondered? Below her two tiny bright blue fish swam slowly across the face of a massive green coral as a multicoloured parrot fish nibbled away at the algae and a strange two foot long, one inch wide "thingy" swam past. Giggling with a childish joy that made her whole body feel awake, she lifted her head clear of the water and called over to Dimitri who was swimming about 10 yards away. "Have you seen those long thin ones, they"re sort of like eels but I don"t think they are. Whatever they are, they"re weird, the fish world"s super models, very long, thin and elegant." With that she waggled her head and gave a little pout. Dimitri laughed, delighted to see her so happy. She had seemed so preoccupied the whole of the holiday and, unusually he had not been able to find out what was really wrong. "I saw about 10 of them in that little cove over there." "Really," she said with a laugh and was off. "Don"t swim too fast you"ll frighten them," Dimitri smiled as she sped away. Yes, it was a good day. * * * This was it thought Dan. The two divers had kept a discreet watch on the pair for almost 10 minutes. They had been in the water when the couple had arrived and had tried to remain invisible. It was not too difficult they were wearing military camouflage wet suits. They were designed with a collection of mottled dun coloured blocks that looked like a piece of rather boring coral, or a rock or perhaps an area of exposed sand. But these were not military issue they had been specially made. They were double thickness with black on the inside so they could be turned inside out and look like a conventional suit on land, They had remained submerged, out to sea, away from the coral the snorkellers would be looking at so even if they were in range they were unlikely to be spotted. At last the two had separated and were now swimming away from each other. Dan turned to Jochem and signalled to move in but also to be gentle. With hand signals he went over the three scenarios they had mapped out. Jochem, ever the professional gave an "OK" after each explanation. Dan knew he knew the routines backwards but details were important. And the gloves were important. * * * Valentina was in heaven. She chuckled so much to herself that she spluttered a little as she breathed in a little water around her snorkel"s mouthpiece. On her way into the cove she had seen the long thin "model" fish but she had also seen a school or was it a pod or group of small squid and they had been nothing short of amazing. She had always thought of squid as ugly solitary creatures but there had been over 20 possibly over 30 and they had been lined up in formation. They had stared at her and as she had moved towards them they had moved away. But if she stayed still they came back towards her, staring at her with huge, intelligent-seeming eyes. And then, all together, they had changed colour. It was simply too good to be true. At that very moment she felt the strangest sensation – like she was in a glass of champagne with the bubbles tingling over her skin – no it wasn"t champagne, she thought, the bubbles were too harsh. It was more like a carbonated water. She was in a bottle of Perrier. Looking down she saw a diver in a very odd wet suit. He turned and looked up at her. "Perv," she thought almost wishing to hide herself in her skimpy red bikini. But then he waved and she waved back – a little human friendship. He motioned her to dive down. Her mood was so buoyant that she thought "Why not". Taking a good lungful of air she arced down towards the diver some six feet below. Almost at once she felt something on the back of her legs it felt like a pair of hands and they moved up her legs to her bum. "My god, they are perverts," she thought and anger flowed up in her unbidden. The first diver now quickly swam up in front of her as she started to turn to the diver behind her. In a quick movement he put his hands on her shoulders. She tried to push him away but he held at arms length. All she could do was push one arm away while the other still pushed down on her back. She tried to kick out at the other unseen assailant but he too held his arms out straight and she could not make contact with him. And then, a full 15 seconds after the attack had begun, she realised this was not a sexual assault – this was much worse. They planned to kill her. * * * For Dan the attack was going perfectly. The perfect plan was to lure her under water and that had worked. The back up was to wait until she was upright in the water adjusting her mask or getting her bearings and then pull her under. This would probably have worked. It was unlikely that the boyfriend would have heard her even if she had called out but there was a danger of marking her skin in the initial struggle. He had been told it was imperative to make this look like a natural death. The third solution, the most problematic, would have been if they could not have got her away from the boyfriend. He had no compunction about killing the two of them but to make it natural causes the only way would have been to kill the boy as well and take the boat out and sink it. But the boy and the boat were local and there was a real danger someone would recognise the boat as they motored it out to its graveyard. But plans B and C were not going to be needed. A tiny hint of a smile creased the corners of his mouth. Plan A was working very well indeed. * * * Valentina was fighting, trying to think of a strategy, any strategy, to get away from her attackers but she could not get near then. It wasn"t that she could not break free of them, they didn"t really have hold of her. They were just pushing her ever so slightly down with gentle, almost tender, hands. "Maybe they are just playing with me," she thought – but that seemed too ridiculous. Valentina fought. She tried desperately to kick for the surface. But she couldn"t. She made a supreme effort to swim forward and for a moment she broke free but within a couple of seconds the hands were gently pushing her down, holding her down, just adding a few pounds to her weight. Only a few pounds but enough to keep her under. There were no thoughts now. Just blind animal panic. She had tried logic and logic had failed. Her animal instincts were all that could keep her alive but they were could also be her worst enemy. When her face had hit the water the mammalian diving reflex had set in. Her heart rate had slowed, the blood flow to her extremities had reduced and blood had been pulled in to the core of her body – her vital organs and her brain. This was normal. Every time she had been swimming this automatic reflex had kicked in. It was triggered by a part of her brain that had hardly changed in a hundred million years. Now an even older and more dangerous set of automatic reactions were about to hold sway. Valentina"s lungs still held plenty of oxygen but the body decides when it needs to breathe based on the level of carbon dioxide in the lungs, not oxygen. While Valentina"s willpower had let he hold her breath so far, her breathing reflex could only be denied for so long. There is something called the breath-hold breakpoint. It can be held off by conscious will and you can train to hold it of longer but Valentina had had no need to train. At three minutes and 18 seconds after she had taken her last breath on the surface, she passed the breakpoint. Her chest was burning, she could hear her heart beating, she wanted to scream, she was crying inside her mask but all her will and passion and intelligence and character could do nothing. "I can hold on," she told herself as tears dribbled out of her eyes. But she could not. At three minutes and 18 seconds she gasped for air and took in a lungful of sea water. But it was not the end. As the water rushed into her mouth towards her lungs, her larynx contracted and nearly all the water she took in, poured into her stomach. She coughed and spluttered and inhaled again. Again her larynx held closed and more water rushed into her stomach. She felt a sting in her arm. For some reason the first diver was ahead of her now, looking directly into her eyes. Through her coughing and spluttering she mouthed the word "Please". But he just looked at her with, she thought, sadness in his eyes. Through her terror, she saw he was holding some sort of gun. Even though her strength was ebbing and every ounce of logic told her she was dying, this new imminent, danger still got through to her tortured self, that bit of her that was still her. A gun she knew meant instant death. Maybe this other death could yet be cheated. She lunged forward and knocked the diver"s mask half off his face. And then she was done. There was no more. Although there was still air in her lungs, her body admitted defeat. Her heart stopped. A massive jolt of pain swept through her. But then it was gone. The effect was subtle, instantaneous and irreversible. As the blood immediately stopped flowing through the millions of tiny vessels in her brain, no new oxygen arrived, no nutrients or enzymes were delivered and no waste products were removed. The organ that made her who she was had started grinding to a halt. Valentina stopped struggling. She could still move her eyes and, with a crystal sharp appreciation she took in her surroundings. She was not afraid, in fact she was feeling better by the second. For over a minute she admired her surroundings. The attack had been so gentle that her mask was still in place. Her coughing had filled one side with water but through the other she could see the fish and the coral. There was a "model" fish and there was another Dimitri, her Dimitri had been right. For a moment she wanted to cry. She would never see him again and that thought nearly broke through the mounting endorphin euphoria but then she thought she would see her father soon. And then she saw them. From the corner of her eye she saw maybe 30 pairs of unblinking eyes staring straight at her. The squid changed colour and she knew that they were sad for her. "I love you" she thought towards them and the squid, all in unison, changed colour one last time. God, if god there be, was kind to Valentina. Half formed thoughts, images, smells, feelings and words flowed through her mind as cells died and pathways collapsed. But none held terror for her, none caused her pain. For some five minutes after her heart stopped beating she was still of this world but, after the first 30 seconds, barely so. At the end there was a glorious white light. And Valentina Boreshkova, aged 27, was no more. * * * As the light began to fade from her eyes, Dan gently began easing Valentina towards the rocks. Very carefully he rubbed the area of her where he had injected against an outcrop. The mix of enzymes and other chemicals should make a coroner put her death down to a heart attack but it would probably be listed as cause unknown. But he was confident that foul play would not be suspected. With a quick moment of panic he remembered that he had dropped the injector. But there it was below him. "That could have been a problem," he thought scooping it up. But even if it had lain there – who would have found it? The gloves had worked perfectly, there was not a mark on her and he was sure no post mortem bruising would develop. "I don"t know why you had to die honey but you have to admit that was pretty painless and your nearest and dearest will just have a little mourn and they"ll be on their way." Dan didn"t really like killing people, it was just a job and soon, he thought, he would retire. In fact he hated killing women especially young ones. "Give me a huge strong ox who has raped a 14 year old and I"m happy," he thought. But then he realised that this job would pull in $500,000 and after expenses he should bank well over $250,000. "Where the hell else am I going to get that sort of money for two weeks work." But he knew he"d had enough. This might not be the last job but it was certainly one of the last. Dan very gently, almost tenderly bumped Valentina against the rocks a few more times then he and Jochem pulled her towards their boat on the other side of the island. The current took her. He watched her for a second or two. Lifeless, but still beautiful, and a huge sadness filled his soul as they climbed into the boat. They would stay in Nha Trang for another three days and finish their diving holiday and they would fly back to the States. It was a hot beautiful day but Dan could hardly wait for the cool civilised air of Seattle. He could hardly wait to go home. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ CHAPTER 2 "It makes no fucking sense. None at all." Sir John William Hanham, Commander of the Metropolitan Police"s Bomb Squad was having a very bad day. Very bad indeed. "What"s the link? What"s the motive? It can"t be three differenet groups but why the hell have we got three explosions with three completely different fucking signatures. Would someone please for the love of all that is fucking holy tell me for the love of fucking God what the fucking hell is going on?" Yes he was having a very bad day. On the other side of the room, Bob Johnson, his loyal number two was smiling, nearly laughing. He adored his boss. Sir John was a down to earth Dorset man, born on the land, schooled at the best institution but still a man of great compassion, great humility and a great joy of life which often expressed itself in some very choice language and sometimes truly appalling jokes and. And with a delightful inevitability as Sir John"s mood worsened the jokes arrived. "And restaurants. Who blows up restaurants? What is it? Free the burned sorghum six, the bread brigade, the bread army faction, the banana carrot top group, ……", he had run out of funny ideas. Then he had one more. "I know it"s a resurgence of the Indian Restaurant Association." On the other side of the room, Bob Johnson, his loyal number two was smiling, nearly laughing. He got them all, except the Indian Restaurant Association. Then the penny dropped. "Ah the IRA. Very droll John." But Sir John"s mood would not lighten not even at his own jokes. And he loved his own jokes. Then Bob Johnson, who should have known better said "How about Fatter - get it Fatter you know like Arafat"s mob Fattah but getting too fat?" He looked at Sir John for approval but received instead a stony glare. Sir John liked Bob Johnson, he had a quick mind and he considered him as much a friend as a colleague or a subordinate. But when he was in a bad mood it was Sir John"s role to make the jokes and Bob Johnson"s to be amused by them. The fact that he had not thought of this obvious witticism irked Sir John. "OK my little Bobby Bunny lets take it from the top." He was trying to cheer himself up but it was not working. Sir John picked up a marker and moved to the white board. "14th July, 7.45 pm, the Old Watch Restaurant in Dean Street bomb number one. Six dead, 27 injured, seven seriously. 18th July, 8.15 pm, the Pork Pie, five dead, twelve injured, nine seriously. 22nd July, 7.30 pm, Jeremy's Garden, seven dead, 14 injured four seriously." He had drawn neat columns and a measure of calm descended on him as he sought to bring some order to the chaos of information his head was harbouring. "OK bomb number one - homemade explosive, nails, simple timer. Bomb number two semtex, ball bearings, nails, and bolts, an altogether nastier little beast. Cell phone detonation. Bomb number three, dynamite, who uses dynamite these days, nails and nothing else, simple timer. All three left in briefcases, all three deadly. No apparent extortion demands, no warning, no claims of responsibility." He put the marker down scratched his head and for the umpteenth time said, "Three different signatures, so do we have three bombers or one miserable tosser trying to be creative and piss about with our plod like brains. "OK descriptions of the bomber are all vague, all male, all white or possibly continental, or just possibly light skinned Arab, about the same height, roughly the same age, one blond, two dark hair but that could just be a wig. One wearing glasses but again that could just be a red herring, bomber number two had a limp but, need we say it again, that could have been faked. No one saw how they arrived and we lose track of all three within about 100 yards of them leaving the restaurant." He paused, chewed his lower lip and looked out of the window. It was about seven in the evening and a beautiful early August day was just turning to dusk. Two weeks he had been fighting a losing battle with the information that presented itself. Normal police enquires had drawn a complete blank. No one had spotted the bombers. No one had come forward to say they had sold the bags or the nails (no surprise there). No hotelier had reported a desperate looking soul building bombs in their bedroom. The restaurants had similarly yielded nothing. There seemed to be no connection between them except that they were popular West End eateries but there was nothing to link them. One was a very high end Indian establishment where Sir John had eaten several times himself. One was a run of the mill "English" restaurant with very little to recommend it and the third was a rather well regarded vegetarian establishment. The theory going the rounds at New Scotland Yard was that someone had it in for London restaurants and either they just hated the capital"s restaurateurs or they planned a campaign of extortion and this was just the first course, the appetiser. Any day now major West End restaurants would get demands for protection money. If they didn"t pay they would be next. Already booking were massively down in restaurants all over the country so Sir John was not only catching flak from the Commander, the PM and a whole slew of politicians, he was catching it from restaurant owners association and just about every newspaper"s food critic had written a piece saying that the Met had to protect this vital part of the British economy and why wasn"t he (Sir John had been named in several articles), why wasn"t he doing more. To be criticised in print by food writers how low could his career sink? But he didn"t think this was a simple case of foodie rage. The three differing signatures was, to say the least, unusual. "Ok Bobby boy what do you think. One bomber or three and what the fuck is going on?" Bob Johnson closed his eyes, leant back in his chair and then opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling. He didn"t like what he saw when he opened his eyes. This was a hideous office but that thought could wait. "OK well I don"t buy that we have one bomb maker. It is too much trouble to go to. I could be wrong we could have some demented bomb making genius that wants to show off his versatility but my enormous gut tells me that we have three builders. Whether we have three different guys planting the bombs is an altogether different question. Could be one could be three, impossible to say but I bet we have three builders." He paused and screwed his eyes shut again. "But why? If it is three makers that means we are dealing with something a hell of a lot bigger than a simple anti restaurant group. The people or person behind this has to be able to find three good makers who are not listed in the Yellow Pages, contact them and control them. And the targets - what or who are the targets? We haven"t had a bomb for two weeks and my guess is this is over so one of the restaurants was the real target and the other two were camouflage or one of the people killed was the target and all the other collateral damage, all 17xxx extra dead are just dead so we don"t know who was really supposed to end up in the morgue. If that is the case we are dealing with one sick powerful bastard "cause he could just as easily have arranged a hit and run to get rid of Mr or Ms X instead of blowing a good part of Soho to pieces." He looked at Sir John who now sat opposite him staring at the floor. When he lifted his head Bob Johnson thought he had never seen his boss look so tired and, this surprised him, so sad. "Well my big bad blobby Bobby I concur." After a long pause he got rapidly from his chair. "But what the fuck are we going to do?" Bob Johnson didn"t say a word he knew that the boss had already decided even though his boss did not know it himself. "We have nothing, absolutely nothing to go on but the physical evidence and you me and the good boys and girls have worked that as hard as we can and it has got us virtually nowhere. We have looked at the victims and the restaurants and nothing has come to the surface." Sir John stood up and looked out of the window. "Desperate times, desperate measures old chum. We are going to get hold of every single living person who has ever looked at a bomb and one of them, if there is a God, will recognise something, or spot something we have missed. Then we will find the bomb maker, then we will torture his miserable hide and find out who paid him and then we will find that little shit, shoot him in the head and all go home and sleep the sleep of the just." And Bob Johnson knew that if his boss had the opportunity that is just what he would love to do. But he knew you couldn"t do things like that in the Met but he also knew on thing for sure - Sir John hated bombers with a passion. Chapter 6 Three days after Sir John Hanham had called for desperate measures an odd assortment of eleven gentlemen and one lady assembled in a large basement room at New Scotland Yard. On three trestle tables evidence bags were laid out. Each table was labelled with details of one of the three bombs. A large pile of forensic reports and other information teetered on each table. Other tables were placed around the room to allow the assembled brainpower to ponder and probe as they wished. And it was an impressive collection of brainpower and courage in this room. Some were academic explosive experts but quite a few had spent time in the field. Several had had near calls and all knew colleagues who could not be in the room because they had drawn the short straw and now lay beneath the ground or had been too seriously injured to travel. There was video equipment so two colleagues in Paris and Berlin, who could not be present, could join in the proceedings. There were experts from four countries who had made it. There was a collection of magnifying glasses, two microscopes, ultraviolet lights, filters and enough other technology and toys to make any bomb investigator happy. In the corner was another vital ingredient - two coffee makers and an ample supply of pastries. This could be a long session. Sir John opened proceedings at precisely 11 am London time and the breakthrough came at precisely 11.19. If Sir John had not talked for 14 minutes it would have come a little earlier. * * * Malcolm Freeland had been a tall, raffish good looking Army Captain of 36 when his black moment had arrived. Defusing a small bomb in Belfast in 19xx he had made a mistake. It still rankled. The bomb maker, one Patrick Michael O"Neil, had fooled him. The bomb was not large and it wasn"t even very clever. If he had not had a fight with his wife the night before he would have probably allowed it to be detonated in place but it was close to the xxxxxx monument that had stood in Belfast for xxxx years and he didn"t want it damaged. He knew the statue probably wouldn"t have been damaged anyway but he wanted to prove to himself he was up to the job. In reality he was bored. These days the job too often consisted of getting little robots to shoot packages and make them safe by "disrupting" their delicate innards and then, after the robot had trained its camera on the remnants, Malcolm would move in and check everything was in order and the bomb could be fully made safe and then the explosives dealt with. There was no finesse, no challenge. He wanted to be a big man and do a big man"s job. True this particular bomb was awkwardly placed so the robot could not get near it, but he knew he needn"t have gone "hands on" when he did. By that stage of "the troubles", as the sectarian warfare in Northern Ireland was euphemistically known, the battle between the bombers and the bomb disposal boys was a game of cat and mouse. The main bomb makers on both the republican and loyalist sides had got the art of making bombs down to a tee. They, too, were frankly bored. So with a little time on their hands they would add a little bit of anti handling nous to their bombs just on the off chance that some silly bugger actually got to play with their handiwork before it went off. They would use mercury switches as tilt sensors (they had been around for well over 50 years), they invented all sorts of little clever bits and bobs but Malcolm was to foul of a very simple and very effective ruse. The bomb he was tackling that day had no real anti handling device but it did have an anti disarming strategy. As soon as he had a good look at it Malcolm could see additional circuits that would detonate the bomb if he tried to defuse it. Coming from the battery were two extra wires. They went to a circuit that physically prevented the detonators (there were two independently wired detonators) from being removed from the two sticks of dynamite. Malcolm calmly checked the circuits. It was a neatly made bomb, tidy even. He quickly analysed the circuits and saw that all he had to do was disable the secondary, protection circuit and he would easily be able to tackle the main circuit and make the bomb safe. Simple physics told him all he had to do was cut the green wire and the bomb would be rendered safe and it could be defused like the dozens he had defused before. But the bomb maker, the youthful, smart but, for Malcolm, tragically bored, Patrick Michael O"Neil, had a simple trick up his sleeve. Behind the explosives, hidden from anyone who might try to defuse his very tidy little bomb, he had connected a green wire to the red and a red to the green. When Malcolm, with a small smile of satisfaction, cut the green wire he said out loud, "got you". But he hadn"t and in that instant his life changed. Malcolm was wearing a bulky anti blast suit but he had taken off his blast protecting gloves for the delicate work of cutting the wires. As he flew through the air he was very, very annoyed. When he awoke in hospital almost two days later he discovered he had lost both his hands. He blamed no one but himself. He didn"t blame O"Neil at all. It had been a fair fight and he had lost. * * * "Got you," said Malcolm Freeland at 11.19 some 20 years later. And this time he had. Chapter 9 When Malcolm Freeland had had hands he had smoked. The mere removal of his hands had, of course, not freed him from the evil weed but it had changed one little thing. Before he had lost his bomb defusing competition with Patrick O"Neil he had had an ingrained little ritual. When he opened a new packet of cigarettes first he would locate the clear plastic tape that ran under the cellophane cover. Then, in one fluid move, he would twist the pack around so he ended up holding the piece of tape - around six inches long and an eight of an eighth of an inch wide. He would then remove the top part of the cellophane covering and take out the bit of silver foil inside the box that covered the tops of the cigarettes. Then, for absolutely no good reason whatsoever, he would straighten the silver paper, carefully fold it in half lengthwise and then fold it in half again. Then he would take the cellophane he had removed and tie it around the silver paper with the plastic tape. Nine times out of ten he would end with a flourish and finish off with a symmetrical little bow. He had no idea why he did this. It was a physical ritual. It was part of him and most of the time he did not realise that he did it. Were he a spy or a criminal, people could have tracked him using his discarded cigarette wrappers. But he was not. And now, with one prosthetic hand and a hook, his days of this tidy little ritual were over even if his smoking was not. Patrick O"Neil had a ritual too. His was much more practical and it was now going to get him into trouble. Patrick was a perfectionist. Many a bomb had failed over the years because the connection between wires had not been made properly. That was never going to happen to Patrick. Patrick would strip about two inches of insulation from the wires that needed connecting. He would wind them around each other like two snakes making love making sure that the wires were twisted together all the way to the end. Then he would fold the twisted pair back on itself, form a loop and pass then end through and tie it into a knot. He would crimp the knot with a pair of pliers and trim the end. He would then take approximately four inches of insulation tape and wind it around his neat little connection. It was tidy, it was effective and sadly for Patrick it was a unique signature. Before and after his career as a bomb maker Patrick had repaired electrical equipment. After many years of working on electrical circuits be they in bombs or televisions he could no more change the way he connected wires than Malcolm Freeland could have stopped his silly cigarette ritual. Patrick had not made a bomb for almost 20xx years. He never would have believed he was leaving such a signal clue. * * * When Sir John Hanham had stopped speaking at 11.14 am the assembled experts had quickly scattered around the room. Two police constables acted as hands and ears for the colleagues in Berlin and Paris. With headset consisting of video camera, earpiece and microphone they could show any piece of evidence to the distant experts and could ask questions of the assembled company. None of the experts knew exactly what they were looking for but each had dealt with dozens of bombers and many bombers had strange little quirks that would expose them. Then there were technological questions to be puzzled over. The assembled company had probably studied the remains of over 200 bombs. Sir John was sure this gathering, this desperate measure would produce something. Some of the assembled group were methodical and would have spent hours on one table before moving onto the next. Some wanted to take in a general overview. Others wanted to drill down on a specific piece of evidence. They would pick up a tagged evidence bag and take it to one of the examination table leaving a note of the piece of evidence they were temporarily removing. Occasionally the PCs with headsets would do the same. For five minutes things moved in a gentle hubbub of hard cerebral work. Malcolm wanted to get a quick overview. At the first table he saw the remnants of a shattered clock which had been the timer, myriad nails, bits of wire, a small piece of red plastic which no one was 100 per cent sure came from the bomb and a thousand other little bits and bobs. Behind the table on the wall was a schematic of what was understood of the construction of the bomb to date. There was also a diagram of the restaurant showing where the bomb was placed and where all the dead and injured had been seated or standing, each neatly labelled. There were brief details of the dead and also any of the seriously injured who, it seemed, might have been intended targets along with their pictures, pictures that showed them in the prime of life. There were other photographs on the wall. Close ups showing the damage in forensic detail and evidence in place. Finally there were two blurry photographs, taken by a security camera at the restaurant and, by chance, one from the clothes store next door. They showed a man of indeterminate features in what looked like a business suit. This was the assumed bomber. * * * Malcolm spent a couple of minutes at table one looking at the artefacts, the photos and the diagrams and, at 11.18 moved on to table two. Here the scene was the same. Photos and diagrams on the wall and supposed remnants of the bomb on the table. Again there were blurry photographs of the assassin, or assumed assassin though this time there were three photographs. Nothing stirred in his memory. Looking around the shoulder of the bulky figure of Antonio Montefiore, an Italian bomb expert who had flown in that morning, he began to scan the detritus on the table. He first saw part of the cell phone and wondered if that had produced any leads. With luck the techs had managed to find phone"s number and had checked calls but in this age of cheap disposable phones he doubted that would lead anywhere. Then there were bits of the bag, some of the shrapnel and then he saw Patrick Michael O"Neil as surely as if there had been a 10 by 8 photograph of the man sitting on the table. Malcolm was suddenly angry. O"Neil might have got his hands fair and square but now it angered him. He had had 20xx years having to make do but more than this O"Neil was no longer an easily led kid. He was a grown man and should know better. He was supposed to have been retired for nearly 20xx years. But now people had died because of his handiwork. Malcolm was angry but he was delighted to have found a vital clue. "Fuck a duck," he said quietly but with such feeling that Montefiore rotated his impressive bulk to look at him. There on the table were two wires twisted neatly and efficiently together. The ends of the two wires had been ripped apart, the heat of the explosion had burnt the insulation from them. But the knot had held. And there was no question about that neat, efficient little knot. Turning around Malcolm looked across the room. "Johnny," he said, his voice calm, authoritative and tinged with a little of that pride that comes from knowing something that others do not know. "This one was built by the shitty little mick who got my hands. 100% it was a certain Patrick Michael O"Neil." All eyes in the room turned to him. Sir John William Hanham looked him straight in the eye and very slowly his face lit up with a huge grin. It was, thought Bob Johnson, his loyal number two, the first genuine smile he had seen on his bosses face for at least two weeks. Chapter 3 In Seattle things were almost as bad. Chapter 6 Crispin Meade was a very charming man. Tall, slim, athletic with beautiful black hair and a classically handsome face he was a successful 37 year old banker – or so everyone thought. Crispin had a confidence and intelligence that enabled him to do almost anything he turned his mind to. Importantly he was not over confident, he knew just how far he could push things and make them happen. He knew how to flatter, he also knew, when the need arose, how to bully and to bluster but mostly it was his confidence that won the day. People deferred. If Crispin was that sure, surely they were wrong. He would think problems through thoroughly and fully and when a solution presented itself, along with a strategy to achieve that solution, a small self-satisfied smile would tug at the corners of his mouth. He knew what had to be done and with his charm, intelligence, confidence and occasional bluster he could make it happen. This made him very successful. He had one other weapon in is armoury – he was different. He had never found a suitable definition. He wasn"t a psychopath or a sociopath (the terms had now become interchangeable). He didn"t suffer from the classic versions of antisocial personality disorder. For a start he did not confirm to the Macdonald Triangle – as a child he had not been a bed wetter, had not been cruel to animals and, while he had enjoyed setting fire to bonfires and lighting fires, he was no way a card carrying pyromaniac. But he knew something was different about him. His total lack of empathy marked him out as having some sort of antisocial or dissocial personality disorder but nowhere in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders could he find a checklist that fitted him. One fact he knew proved he was different. Killing six people and not feeling the least bit concern was unusual. But he did not suffer for impulsivity or a failure to plan; he did not suffer from irritability and aggressiveness and get into frequent physical fights. He didn"t have a "reckless disregard for safety of self or others" – well not normally. So he had long ago stopped worrying about what to call his difference (he did not call it a problem as he felt he was blessed to be different) but the rational and inquiring part of him would have liked to know. He didn"t fit narcissistic personality disorder, or the more exciting sounding malignant narcissism, he certainly hit most of the buttons of the schizoid personality disorder but missed a couple and anyhow vanilla SPD types did not murder without remorse. Ah well maybe one day he would find a label to stick on himself and he would feel a little more complete. He had had a perfectly normal middle class upbringing by parents who had loved him. Gone to a normal school the only thing that was different was he never had friend sand did not feel the need for them. He was happy to read, to go for walks in the country to watch movies and television. He would happily talk to adults about any topic and they would be impressed in his knowledge and assurance. His parents, initially worried about his lack of friends eventually came to believe that his maturity meant he could not find friends his own age and that as he got older he would find some friends and all would be well. With the coming of his sexuality things began to change. He had never had a need for anyone but by his early teens he had a burning interest in sex. His charm, confidence and good looks had, until then, got him extra sweets, what he wanted from teachers and more gifts than he might otherwise have expected. Now it helped him with sexual conquests. He did not want relationships, whatever they were, he liked the chase and the victory. After the initial acquiescence, and a few more acts of submission from his partner he would move on to new territories only revisiting past conquests if new opportunities could not be found or if new targets had not been groomed sufficiently for them to start satisfying him. It goes without saying he cared not at all how his "lovers" felt, they were just an extension of his needs. His sexual life started one day during the summer holidays when he was 11. He had been surreptitiously scanning three or four girlie magazines not really understanding his feeling when a man had come up to him and said: "Makes you want to have a play with yourself doesn"t it. Do you know where we could go and do it together?" Crispin looked at the man and saw his sad desperation. He saw no confidence, no courage, no real passion just a look of hunted desperation and a large dose of general fear. Crispin wanted to share nothing with this person. Without a word he stared coldly into the man"s eyes for a long, long moment and then he turned and walked briskly out of the shop. He did not look back but he knew for certain that the man would not follow him. Even at 11 he had begun to have control over people. 4443 ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] Chapter 12 In a small African country, events moved slowly forward. They moved slowly, but with great import. We shall not name this country not for because shame but because enough unfairly damning reportage has been poured over this benighted country already. Suffice it to say that a thousand years ago a several kingdoms of some xx million souls had held sway over its territory and adjacent lands. But colonists had arrived to "civilise" this part of the world they understood so little. Blacks were nigger slaves to be used and dispose of as desifred. The very ground was to be raped and ruined and the plentiful fauna was to be decimated and more, destroyed in the name of soport, of profit and simple bloody minded lust of death. In fact in all things death loomed large. Death was nn unwritten terror of the new arrivals. They had always feared it at home and now here, where they dropped like flies, the terror reached deep into their very souls and made them brutal – cold, vicious and brutal. The mearest infraction could lead to death – not because the fault was great but to teach understanding to the savages – savages who had managed their affairs for thousands of years every bit as well and badly as the Europeans had managed their own. But the new arrivals, who came first frfom one European country then another as distant wars raged, if they could have looked into their murky and now damaged souls would have sen that they had become killers to assuage their very fear of death. Quiet little civilized men, who in London, Paris or Berlin might have been bookkeepers or habidashers, thought nothing of shooting a nigger in the head if he did not show enough reverence or was not quick enough to follow an order. ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] (((( xxxx REWRITE this is the two days after Malcolm identifies O"Neil)))) The sun rose that morning over a tranquil rural idyll. The crows were crawing in the trees, the cows were waking and beginning their long daily task of chewing the grass and, with the mist starting to clear as the first rays of the sun warmed the air, two snipers of the Ulster Police Tactical unit focussed their scopes on the premises of Patrick Micheal O"Neil in the small town of XXXXX in the valley below. It would not remain tranquil for long. *** In his shop O"Neil was unaware of the watchers in the trees but he would not have been surprised to know they were there. He was a careful and methodical man and he knew there was a possibility that his handiwork would come back to haunt him. Pat, as he liked to be called, considered himself a good man and, apart from the bombmaking and the death that his work produced, he was a good man. He worked hard, charged his customers a fair price, helped out those less fortunate than himself and went to church every Sunday. He took no joy in his bomb making now and even looked back on his years of active service with misgivings. He had never been an indiscriminate bomber, he had refused to bomb any target that he felt inappropriate and had got into trouble for that on many occasions. He had specialised in killing his enemies and in stunt bombs - bombs designed to make life difficult for the occupiers and make a protest. His 23 "professional" bombs had only killed 11 people. Ten of them he had meant to kill. They were all members of paramilitary groups who were trying to kill him and his friends so he had no heavy weight of guilt pressing down on him. One of his kills, however, had been a young mother of three who had been walking past a shop he blew up. It was a structural operation. His job was to blow up a bakery that was being used as a front for money laundering and whose premises were also being used for operational planning. The blast at 4 am was intended to send a message and the powers that be had decided that a bloodless message was appropriate in a time of relative peace. Gillian McCree was 29 and on her way to catch a bus to take her to work as a xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. At 4.03 when the bomb exploded Gillian McCree was on the opposite side of the road and, in one of those freaks of physics, she was very much in the wrong place at the wrong time. The bakery was virtually destroyed but, with careful planning Patrick had set up the bomb so it would take out the middle of the building and leave the outside virtually intact. That way the adjacent, blameless properties and anyone walking past the shop would be safe. And at 4 am, surely no one would be walking past the shop. When the bomb (there were in fact four separate charges) went off, a granite work top where bread rolls had been hand kneaded for over 50 years shattered. A piece of work top, which had been bought by the former owner of the shop and was in fact over 100 years old, went flying off at approximately 180xx miles an hour. The coroner"s report said it weighed less than a chicken egg. By some malign miracle it missed the remaining parts of the front of the shop, the street lamp outside the shop and with perfect accuracy struck Gillian McCree in the left eye. She had heard the bomb, turned to look in the direction of the sound and was still turning her head as the accidental projectile killed her. Had she taken her intended step instead of turning towards the noise she would now be proud that Eileen, her eldest daughter had just got her law degree from Oxford. That piece of rock which , until it was fashioned into a work surface just three generations ago, had laid undisturbed in the ground since well before the time of the dinosaurs. Now, still travelling at some 150 miles an hour, it smashed through Gilliam McCree"s sphenoid bone as if was not there. It created a huge shockwave in her brain and exited through a massive wound at the back of her head. The coroner said over 80 per cent of her brain matter had left her skull. It was the most humane of deaths, if somewhat undeserved. *** As O"Neil made coffee that morning in the flat above his shop he was thinking about Gillian McCree. He often did. Her death had shocked him and still a great sadness came over him when he thought of her. If she had just been one step further down the road, if the alarm clock had not gone off or, perhaps more honestly, if the bomb he had made had been slightly different so that bit of granite had not flown out …. If only, if only. But when he was honest with himself, he new the biggest link in the chain of coincidences that caused Gillian McCree"s death was himself. If only he had not made the damn bomb, had not been a bomb maker at all. Oh for a different life. But now his mind turned to an even greater sadness. He had killed xx people in a restaurant in London. He knew who the target was but had no idea why he had to die and he was almost 100 per cent certain that the other xxx people were innocent bystanders. They had come to him four months ago. "Mr O"Neil my name in Crispin Meade and I have some work for you." *** CHAPTER XX O"Neil in London planting bomb. STW Man comes in man and gets blown up. CHAPTER XX +7 Scene to write (STW) Sniper POV - short as they go into shop stw 888 It was just after 9 in the morning. Pat O"Neil was nursing a hang over, sitting on his stool in the shop nursing a cup of coffee between his two hands. Nursing was what he needed. Normally he did not drink but these were not normal days and he found himself drinking more and more. Work was light and since the London bombing his mood was bleak. Mead had been true to his word he had paid him the £100,000 with a £50,000 bonus. ((((VERSION 2?? NO bonus but fee and a short note that said "Mr O"Neil you failed in your assignment. But it appears your efforts were sincere. So no bonus but also no penalty. Talk to anyone and the penalty will be activated. Burn this note."))))) The fee had been delivered in a bundle of cash sent recorded delivery through the ordinary post. The money sat upstairs under a lose floorboard. He had no idea what to do with it and he had no idea what to do in general. He had never felt so low. He fantasised about sending the money to Eileen McCree and other daughter Sally but thought that easing his guilt with such ghastly blood money would do him no good. Maybe Oxfam or MSF could do some good. They dealt with the world"s evils and the evil had been done perhaps he could somehow square the circle. He was halfway through his coffee, still nursing it with both hands, when the door opened and two fit young men entered. He recognised neither of them. "Good morning," said the taller of the two. "Morning," he replied but what he thought was "This is it". Ever since the bombing he was sure one of two things would happen, either Meade would have him removed or the authorities, probably in the guise of the Special Branch, would pay him a most unwelcome visit. He thought these two were Special Branch goons but he could not be 100% sure. He found himself feeling a little relived which surprised him. In a few moments either he would be dead or the scene would play itself out through legal channels. In either case he would no longer be alone with his guilt. And that made him feel better. The shorter one, who was still a good six feet tall, moved to the left of the counter and picked up a cheap radio. "How much?" he asked. At the same time his colleague moved to the right of the counter. O"Neil almost laughed it was all so obvious. "Well normally they are £12 but I have a funny feeling a closing down sale is in order so why don"t we just say £6 and a free pass out the back door?" The tall one looked shocked and O"Neil wondered where on earth they were training them these days. He was 90% certain now that these were police of some flavour. Killers would have been more direct, more brutal. Tall one looked at short one and gave the slightest of nods. As one they drew pistols, tall one aimed straight and O"Neil"s heart and short one aimed squarely, very squarely O"Neil thought, right between his eyes. "Do not move a fucking muscle," shouted the tall one. And after this neither said a word and this bizarre tableau held still for a good 20 seconds. The door opened and the annoying chimes that O"Neil had meant to change for over 10 years, broke the silence. The bright "ding, dong" seemed to him massively incongruous at this juncture but he decided that now was not the time to fix this problem. But he did think, "If I make it back from this that damned chime is going to go." From the position he was frozen he could see the door. The bulky frame in the door was back lit and he couldn"t make out who it was but something about the figure was familiar. Then as the left hand came into view O"Neil thought he was going to faint. There was no hand just a hook. "Hello Mick, long time no see," said Malcolm Freeland. CHAPTER XX + 9 "I thought we all agreed back in 1998 that you would stop making your little toys. But it seems you have started having fun again," said Malcolm Freeland as he walked into O"Neil"s shop. O"Neil was in shock. He had met Malcolm at a reconciliation conference in 2006 and despite an initial frostiness the two had got on well. O"Neil had apologised for blowing up Malcolm, Malcolm had said it was "nothing personal" and the two had got down to war stories. O"Neil had been amazed at how little anger Malcolm harboured towards him. Malcolm had been amazed at how little anger he had felt and was more than a little amazed at how well they got on. The two hour encounter had been, well, amazing. They had had no contact since. O"Neil stared mesmerised at Malcolm and could not help let his eyes drift towards his hands. The prosthetic hand looked almost real when it was not being used to grasp something but the hook always told its brutal story. "I… I…," was all O"Neil could stammer. Half a dozen men, all in plain clothes streamed into the shop behind Malcolm and someone cuffed O"Neil and sat him on the stool. "I"m sorry," O"Neil finally managed to say. His mind was full of Meade and the sense of evil, powerful evil that emanated from him. "I"m sorry," O"Neil said a second time his voice almost inaudible. And all at once tears formed in his eyes and started to flow down his cheeks. "Cut the water works," Malcolm snapped. "You killed xx people in that restaurant, so don"t start pretending you have a conscience you bastard. You killed them in cold blood. No warning, nothing. Why?" O"Neil was silent staring at the floor. Malcolm could feel a terrible rage rising in him. He had no problems with bombs, in fact he loved explosions of all sorts, they were great fun. But to use explosives to kill people - that was altogether a different kettle of fish. But as fast as the rage had risen it now began to subside and just then: "You complete little arse faced tossing cunt," Sir John William Hanham, third Earl of Prothorn, Marquis of Enderham arrived. "Fuck me around and I"ll stick a fucking detonator up your arse and set it off. Not a stick of anything just a detonator and don"t think I won"t. I won"t kill you just leave you wrecked you fucking sorry little tosser." And Sir John, a man of great breeding and great kindness, just kept marching forward across the little shop. Without a pause kicked O"Neil in the chest and sent him sprawling his head colliding with the wall. "Piss with me and you will wish you were dead. Understand?" By now he was screaming. "Understand?" O"Neil just lay on the floor. Blood began to flow form a cut on his head. But he said nothing. Malcolm felt he knew the man a little and he began to wonder. As the search teams went to work he looked around the shop. Everything was so ordinary - just a little shop in a little town. They had checked with all the intelligence agencies they could think of and no one had come up with anything new on O"Neil. He had been imprisoned in 1996 and released in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. His file said he had stopped being active after a bomb of his had killed a passer-by a couple of years before he was arrested for an older bombing. That was it and then the London bombing. Why would he come out of retirement and decide to blow up a restaurant. Malcolm was fairly confident that O"Neil had not made the other two bombs so what was going on? "John don"t take it out on him. It"s not his fault." Malcolm was playing a hunch. Sir John looked at him in shock. "What do you mean it"s not his fault? The little twat built it and the little twat planted it." Sir John was not 100% certain but analysis of the blurry video certainly showed that the bomnber could be O"Neil. "Pat we know you built it, we know you planted it. You must have planted it for a reason, so why not tell us about it you shitty little weasel?" Malcolm looked at the Deputy Commissioner who was leaning menacingly over O"Neil and they both knew that they had fallen into the good old familiar bad cop/good cop role. And to complete the theatrics the erudite Sir John kicked the stricken O"Neil in the stomach. The blow knocked the wind out of the bomb maker but he didn"t make a sound. "Hold on John lets try and talk to him before you put him in hospital," said Malcolm half hoping that Sir John would just carry on. "Come on Pat, I know you and this isn"t your scene why did you do it." And at that very moment Sergeant Paul Johnson, 16 years on the force walked in with a pile of cash. "Well this might be why he did it - £150,000 or thereabouts hidden under the floorboards. Either our boy here"s been fixing an awful lot of broken TV"s or he"s been up to no good." Sir John lashed out another kick and followed the sergeant upstairs. Malcolm though about following him but something about O"Neil"s complete lack of fight, verbal or physical said something important was waiting to be found here, in this room and there were enough eyes upstairs he could do his own search later. He was originally brought along as a courtesy for identifying the bomb maker but his fleeting relationship with O"Neil had convinced Sir John that his presence could be useful. Now he thought that it might just turn out to be very useful. "So what is it Pat, a little contract work for your retirement plan. You know as well as I do that you are on your way back to prison for the rest of your life unless you have something big to offer," he paused and looked down at the man. O"Neil just lay in a ball on the floor. "You"ll have to talk soon. You know you will." A tiny voice came from the mouth of the broken man on the floor, a voice like a small child talking to its mother. The voice was full of fear, full of a feeling that nothing can save the child and an appeal for help all at once. "I can"t say anything, I can"t it"s too dangerous." "Why is it dangerous to talk Pat, what"s going on. Who are you working for?" "I can"t tell you, he"ll kill them. He won"t hesitate." "Who"s going to kill them and who is he going to kill them. We can protect them. You"ve got to start talking Pat - you"ve got to." O"Neil just pulled himself into a tighter ball and started a low keening moan. The moan became a very quiet wailing, animal and unselfconscious. Malcolm looked at him and saw that tears covered his cheeks and more were joining them every second. "What the hell is going on here," he wondered. Within an hour he would have O"Neil"s story but he would still be wondering what the hell was going on! CHAPTER AA or 888 What had done this to O"Neil was Crispin Meade. When Meade had said he had some work for him O"Neil had put down the screw driver he was using on the television he was repairing and had finally really studied the man who had come into his small shop. Meade was a tall, with a self possessed air and good looking. He was around 40, perhaps a bit younger. He looked like a very successful banker. "Too smart for this shop," thought O"Neil. His suit looked expensive and O"Neil noticed his immaculate shoes - not something usually found in this predominantly rural area. And another odd note - he was wearing expensive looking gloves. Standing just behind Mead was a beautiful young girl who seemed to dote on the man who was maybe twenty years her senior. "I see," said O"Neil. "Do you need something fixing or is it something else?" Nearly all of O"Neil"s work had been repairing things but occasionally he had special projects. He had recently completed the installation of a fancy home cinema set up for a banker from Belfast. Repairs were his bread and butter but he dreamed of more of the lucrative bespoke work. And from the look of him Meade was unlikely to need an old TV set repaired so he hoped for something more exciting and more lucrative. Meade gave a small laugh. "Oh it is definitely something else. I want you to blow up a restaurant for me. " He looked directly into O"Neil"s eyes and as he spoke, O"Neil saw no doubt, no compassion and no wavering of intent. "I want to get you working on this straight away so just so you know I really am in earnest I have bought you a calling card," with that he turned to the girl who handed him a paper bag which he passed to O"Neil. Inside the bag O"Neil found a credit card in the name of Sally Wander which seemed to have something that looked like dried blood on it. Next to it something wrapped in a small piece of cloth. O"Neil put the bag down and unwrapped the cloth which was the source of the blood on the card. As he opened it he went into shock and his hands threw the cloth away from him without his brain having even to think about it. Inside was top two joints of what looked like a woman"s middle finger. "About an hour ago a poor woman walking alone about one mile outside Bollewell was sadly killed by a hit and run driver. You should be able to read about it in the paper tomorrow. She died because of you. She died because I had to be sure that I got your attention. I hope I have it now." O"Neil looked at the man and could only nod. "You have to understand I do not have a problem with killing, in fact I quiet enjoy it but I cannot have too much fun or the authorities might take too much of an interest in me. So I want you to do a little job for me. As I said I want you to blow up a restaurant, rather I want you to blow up a man in a restaurant. It is very important that it takes place in a restaurant. I will pay you £100,000 on completion of the work with a bonus if you succeed in killing your target. The bonus will be £50,000 but the real bonus is you will not be killed. Mention my name or my description, betray me in any way and you will be killed, your daughter will be killed and in case that isn"t enough to concentrate your mind, Eileen, Gillian McCree"s daughter will be added to the list - and I know that would upset you. Should something untoward happen and the target survives I may forgive you but if you do not try, if I sense any lack of application on your part and your daughter, Eileen and you will all be killed. Do I make myself clear." O"Neil"s mouth was slightly opened, his mind blank. The other man"s words terrified him. It was the certainty and the nonchalance with which he delivered his ultimatum. The eyes held no fear, no doubt, no hesitation, certainly no mercy. For many seconds O"Neil starred at him paralysed and wondered if this was a nightmare. He hadn"t made a bomb for almost 15 years. His bowels tightened, his pulse raced and he began to sweat. Though his mouth felt dry, a small drop of spittle leaked from the left corner of his mouth. Feeling faint he grasped the corner of the counter and dropped his gaze. "You"re not serious… you don"t really …. ," O"Neil"s voice trailed away to nothing as he looked at the finger. He tried again. "You can"t…." but again he could find no words. His mind simply had nowhere to find a solution. He could not appeal to a sense of mercy, he could sense that Meade had no understanding of compassion, logic was a non starter with a madman, threats were a joke, he knew that Meade would not be frightened of him the only hope in this area was his erstwhile paramilitary contacts but he had almost no dealings with old colleagues. He was out of options. He looked up and saw the girl looking at him. There was no pity in her eyes, no condemnation of the deaths he had caused in the past, just a hint of arousal xxx REWRITE xxx zxzxz and excitement and, as she looked to Meade, the excitement and arousal blossomed into a full, but consciously suppressed, erotic passion. She took half a step towards him and, taking his hand, she cradled his arm in the valley of her cleavage. This was a woman who would do anything for her man and judging him did not even come into the equation, O"Neil thought. If he had not been there she would have thrown herself on Meade now. In fact, O"Neil was sure that if Meade told the girl to make love with him then and there she would. O"Neil was invisible to her. Only the madman mattered. O"Neil noticed this in a moment and looked again at the man. Meade had shattered his quite little world. It was now spinning out of control. Meade"s words were nothing but looking at the man he knew, he just knew, that if push came to shove, or even just a little push, Crispin Mead would do exactly what he said he would. "I won"t do it, I won"t," O"Neil said mustering as much bravado as his battered psyche could offer up. Meade just looked at him and a quiet hint of a smile played around the corners of his mouth. "Oh I think you will." Meade had come to the shop to fulfil a specific task. It was not something he had given that much thought to. But he found himself happily surprised at the amount of satisfaction this little interaction was giving him. He found he was actually enjoying himself. "Now that"s a bonus," he thought to himself. He tried to analyse his feelings and soon discovered where his little bit of joy was coming from - he had O"Neil trapped in a corner, powerless and Meade loved to be totally in control. "You won"t do it? Oh I think you will," he repeated. He really was enjoying himself and, as with most human beings, even for twisted sick deranged Meade, happiness happened all too rarely. His small smile became a joy-filled grin. And then he laughed. 888 On the floor of his little repair shop O"Neil cried. It had been many, many years since he had cried. Her didn"t care that Malcolm could see and he hear him. He didn"t feel unmanned he felt horribly, horribly lost. There was absolutely nothing he could do. He felt sure that if he said anything Meade, that insane, inhuman asshole, would go through with his threats. He wouldn"t do it to stop O"Neil talking but because in his demented psychopathic version of the world it was the honourable thing to do. His thinking cleared. Better to spend his life in prison than to kill the others - because that is what he would be doing. As sure as houses if he talked the others would die. O"Neil by now had completely forgotten about his own death sentence - it simply did not figure in his thinking. He felt he was already dead. In fact if his thoughts had been organised he would have prayed for a heart attack there and then. That would get him off the hook and save the others. But O"Neil"s brain was in no state to think clearly. He did not think - he only felt. He felt lost as he had never felt before and so he cried and cried and cried. The only vaguely coherent thought that came to him was "I wish Soibahn was here to hold me, to encircle me, to protect me, to comfort me". But Soibahn, his wife of 15xxx years, had died eight years before. She had died in a hit and run car crash and O"Neil had wondered long into the night, on many sleepless nights, if Meade"s murder of xxx by the side of the road outside xxx was another psychological twist. He doubted it. If Meade had known of how his wife had died, O"Neil was sure he would have tormented him with it. Meade, he could sense, liked to twist the knife. Yes, had he known, O"Neil was sure, almost 100% sure, that Meade would have rubbed his face in it. Into O"Neil"s pain-filled world movement intruded. He felt himself being pulled up by hands on both arms. He was only half aware of those around him. He felt almost drugged. The hands dragged his feet across the floor and put him in a chair. If he had been capable of thought he might have been surprised how gentle the hands were. ((((((He was limp now but in about 30 seconds he was going to come explosively to life.))))) 888 The hands had belonged to two local police constables who were rather enjoying their exciting day out with the Special Branch/Bomb Squad task force. Of course they thought that the Londoners were rather lording it over them but this gig with snipers, bomb disposal, helicopters and the rest broke up the monotony of petty crime that was their usual lot. They had put O"Neil in the chair because they were told to. They would have done it roughly as they had been told he had blown up a restaurant in London and that he was a former IRA bomber, but his Lord High and Mighty Sir Bloomin John Bloody William Fucking Hanham KMC etc had told them to be gentle. 888 Sir John did not care about the two constables. They were appliances to be used. His whole focus was on O"Neil. The only other person on his radar was Malcolm. But he had instructions and he motioned them to him. ((((xxxx REWRITE one should be a sergeant or something))) "Don"t hit him, don"t threaten him, don"t do anything to upset him. Every so often talk to him gently and try and get him to have a sweet cup of tea or something like that. Don"t overdo it. Let him take his time. He"s in shock. If he doesn"t come out of it in 10 minutes get one of the paramedics to have a look at him. There is also a local doctor on the way. Find me when he gets here. OK?" "Yes sir," the constables replied in unison. "We"re going to be on the phones in the kitchen. If he says anything intelligible, anything at all, come and tell me. If he mutters one word, come and tell me. Whatever that word is, come and tell me. Even if it makes no sense, come and tell me. If he says biscuits, come and tell me. Any single word, one of you come and tell me. But do not, for all that if fucking holy, upset him. If I need to upset him, I surely will. Don"t pump him, don"t interrogate him, mother him. That"s what I need. What I need from you two now is a calming, motherly act to try and get his feet back on the ground so we can work out what the flying fuck is going on because, at the moment, I have a whole stack of bodies and so far, all today"s little jaunt has done, is add about another hundred questions to our staggeringly big list of things we know absol-fucking-lutely nothing about!" This time the PC"s looked at each other a little uncertainly and said, a little uncertainly, "Yes sir." This was, they thought, a rather odd little speech. "Off you go then boys and don"t forget: one word, just one word and one of you come and finds me. Do that and I"ll pin a gold fucking star on your chest. But don"t question him. OK." "Yes sir," the constables replied in unison although they both still felt a little uncertain. Malcolm and Sir John moved into the kitchen. XxxRW description of kitchen and business?? Xxx "You are not going to believe what we have just found in the ice box of this refrigerator," Sir John said to Malcolm as soon had closed the door. "You are not going to fucking believe it." 888 The previous day over 20 detectives had worked long into the night to check out O"Neil. What they had found did not please Sir John. As far as anyone could tell O"Neil had been completely clean since he had left xxx prison. No surveillance of active paramilitaries had ever spotted him, his bank accounts mirrored his supposed life as a corner shop owner, his travel plans showed nothing out of the ordinary and worst of all he seemed to have a rock solid alibi for the first bombing and what looked like a good alibi for the second. When the xxx bomb had gone off, O"Neil had been in hospital after having his appendix removed. They had faxed his picture to the hospital to make sure that the man having the operation really was O"Neil and two nurses and a doctor had been 100% certain it was him. The second alibi was not yet as solid, he had been on holiday in Greece, but Sir John was pretty sure that would pan out - detectives had sent a request via Interpol to check out the story and make sure he could not have ducked back to London. They would get the staff at the hotel to check his movements and a picture had been sent out. As Sir John lowered himself onto a kitchen chair by the sturdy rustic table, Malcolm looked out of the window. It was a beautiful day and Malcolm wondered when his life would let him again enjoy the quiet moments of a normal existence. The trees, the birds, the cows in the field, they all called to him. He had grown up in rural West Dorset and, after only 48 hours of hectic activity, he longed to go home. But there was still work to be done. "OK, everything points to O"Neil having nothing to do with bombs number one and three but number two was all his," said Sir John wearily. "We"ve just found Semtex, tools, wiring, ball bearings the lot in his garage. He seems to have made no effort to cover his tracks which is weird to say the least but at least I am now 100% sure you were right in fingering him." Sir John paused and looked down at where Malcolm"s hands should have been. "Sorry." Malcolm laughed. "No problem, if I had a pound for every time I had said "You see what I mean" to a blind person ….," his voice trailed off as he smiled at Sir John. "Anyway fingered is kind of appropriate, about five minutes ago we found a human finger and a credit card belonging to a certain xxx xxx in O"Neil"s freezer. The locals have a done a quick check and she was killed in a hit and run accident xxx weeks ago." Malcolm stared at him rather blankly. "What?" "Yeah I said you weren"t going to fucking believe it. The credit card is hers and they are checking the autopsy report to see if she was missing a finger and I would bet serious mony that she was buried minus what looks like her left index finger. Now a question. Do you think O"Neil would run a woman down, cut off her finger, take her credit card and then keep it all in his freezer as some sort of trophy. You don"t know him well but what do you think." Malcolm didn"t need long to think. "Shit what do I know." "Well have a guess." "OK well he was sort of a "caring" bomber, tried not to blow up anyone he didn"t feel he should do. Unless this woman turns out to have done something really horrible to him or someone he loved I find it pretty difficult to believe he has suddenly become some sort of serial killer, axe murder or whatever. He was a bomber, and he got into that when his brother was shot in that SAS ambush. So I can see him going after British soldiers and those on the other side of the conflict but hacking up a civilian, now, after all these years doesn"t scan - unless, as I said, she isn"t an accidental victim but someone with a connection to him." Sir John rocked back on his chair and wished he could have a cigarette. "My thoughts exactly but I wanted to hear it from someone else just to make sure I am not missing something. So what the flying fuck is going on. What…" His phone rang and Sir John answered. Malcolm listened to one half of a short conversation that made little sense. He thought back to meeting with O"Neil in xxx. He had seemed a pretty normal guy who had been living a pretty normal life until his brother had been killed. But his career as a bomber and his stay in jail seemed to have satisfied his grief and Malcolm had been pretty sure he would return to the normal world and be a normal citizen. How unnormal O"Neil"s now seemed! "Oh this just keeps getting better," said Sir John with a sour look on his face that signalled he was being extremely sarcastic. "OK now I'm not believing this. Not only is Mrs xxx missing the finger we found, she is missing three others and the traffic cops say that the tyre tracks are pretty damning. The car that hit her drove straight at her, with no effort to miss her, and she wasn"t on the road but on a footpath. The car only started to break after it hit her. They are pretty convinced it was a deliberate murder and no accident." Sir John rubbed his hands over his face he was so tired and nothing was making any sense. ((((REWRITE))))"Unless we find another three fingers here I have no idea what is going on. But O"Neil"s made no effort to hide the bomb making stuff, he keeps the finger and credit card I think he made that bomb under duress. I think he was forced to do it." 888 VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV To the untrained eye there was nothing to see. But George Clooney"s eyes were very well trained. The man he was following had had a newspaper with him when he sat down for his breakfast and now he didn"t. Nothing too interesting there to the casual observer but the man had not read it over breakfast, it had been tightly folded and most importantly the paper was not on the table it had been left discreetely on the seat. George was pissed. Normally he operated in a team with up to a dozen in the team doing a box sureveilance, changining point people so the subject would not know he was being tailed with a backup ready to take over at a moments notice. But this operation was a favour to the Brits and, with the Vice President due in town the next day, the local FBI field office was overstretched and it had been left ot him to keep an eye on this guy Meade. He had sat in a booth perpendicular to Meade, that meant he could observe his subject without the subject being able to see him unless he turned around. An old trick to keep the upper hand. The Brits had said they were not sure if he was a player and just wanted a quick look at what he was up to in San Diego and so he had been given the assignment on his own. With 20 years on the job the boss had felt that George on his own would do. After all the Brits were not sure if this guy was up to anything. Now George was almost sure. But he was now royally pissed. He could either follow Meade or sit still and wait and see if someone picked up the paper. "Shit," he said quietly under his breath. If the pickup was coming it would have to happen almost immediately or someone else would take the paper or one of the overworked waitresses would clear the paper away. His orders were to follow Meade but knew it was more important to put Meade in context. He wanted to call for backup but that could well spook the contact. So he waited. Meade had just made it to the door when a man at the counter nonchalantly picked up his coffee and sat down at the vacated table. "I"ll take it over here honey," he said to the girl behind the counter with a smile. "Fine, hun," the girl cooed back to him. She was under 20 and, judging by his clothes and his hair, he was at least 35 but she obviously saw something in him. The man moving to the table was over six foot, powerfully built with his blond hair cut short. George saw the bulge under his left arm as he moved and as he turned to sit down. As the man turned to sit George saw his face for the first time. "Holeee fuck," George said agin under his breath and told himself to shut up. George stared at the face shocked. From his booth he had surveyed all the customers in the diner he could see but this guy had had his back to him. "Just as well thought," George. Because if he had seen him Secret Servive agent Clive Morgan would have blown his cover. 888 After about a minute of pretending to eat his food, George slipped out of the both and headed for the men"s room as unobtrusively as he could. He prayed that Morgan would not spot him. He did not dare look in the agent"s direction his movement could alert Morgan but with his face turned slightly away he was pretty sure he would not be "made". With the Service in town for the President an agent meeting with a potential bad guy could be all sorts of things. But something was definitely going on. What was going on, he had no idea. He dailed xxxx his boss and Annie, xxx"s secretary, came on the line. "Annie it"s George Clooney I need to speak to xxx urgently." "Hey beautiful, how"s it going and when are you going to buy me lunch." Annie was 60 if she was a day but she always flirted with George and George always reciprocated. "I"m not sure about lunch how about dinner my place tonight around 10.30?" "Sure I"ll come round in my jammies and we can go straight to …." George cut her off. "Sorry Annie I have to speak to xxx urgently. Sorry to cut you off but I am on someone"s tail and I don"t want to lose them." He checked through the door and counted himself lucky. From the door to the rest rooms he was diagonally behind Morgan. This was more luck than good planning but it meant he could easily keep an eye on Morgan who would have to turn around to see him. He would know when the man was leaving. "Sorry lover but xxx is in a finance meeting and cannot be disturbed." "And I am sorry too sweet pea, your going to have to yank him out. This is a 100% urgent emergency. Minutes matter." "OK I"ll get him on the phone but you owe me." George kept a watch on Morgan and counted the seconds. He did not want to stay too long in the backm and arouse suspicion but he also didn"t want to use his phone in the restaurant. Even a small sound, a small discrepancy could attract a well trained agent"s attention and the Secret Service were nothing if not well trained. After about 20 seconds xxx came on the line. "Yep," he said tersely. "You know that English guy I"m following." "Yep." "Well he just did a cut out drop in a diner on West 34th Street." "Really, who picked up - I"m guessing you stayed with package." "That"s why this call is urgent and not just interesting - you"re not going to believe this. His paper was picked up by a Secret Service guy I know called Clive Morgan. I"ve lost Meade for now but would love to know what is going on. I can"t tail Morgan on my own. A one on one tail with someone that experienced and I"d be bound to be made. As he lknows me I doubt I"d make half a block following him. "Don"t suppose you"ve got a few rookies in the area. He knows most of the faces at the office but he might not spot the new one"s well just have to hopen that their street craft is good enough." "Shit," said xxx with feeling. "Give me 10 seconds. Xxx came back on the line in about 20 seconds. "I can get you two guys in about five minutes and another three in about 15. I can let you have two cars and that"s your lot." "OK. I"m commed up so get them to call me on the radio not this phone. It looks like we have a few minutes at least. He seems to be really eating a breakfast here, which is pretty sloppy, so I"ll sit tight. Tell then to form up out of sight across the street and just ping me when they"re in position I won"t respond or I"m pretty sure he will make me. I"ll give them the heads up as soon as he is out of the door. He"s about 6" 1" short blond hair, wearing a brown leather jacket and khaki slacks with black lace up shoes." "Got all that. Hold on. Annie did you get all that can you forward it to the two kids that despatch picked out." George hadn"t realised Annie was on a listen-only circuit but it made sense and he was grateful now. He could hear Annie in the distance saying OK and then his boss was back on the line. "xxx can you make discrete enquireies at the Service and see what is going." "Ahead of you kid. And I"ll be discrete. I am going to talk to Mike Jackson who head"s up the local office they could be running an operation, they might think Meade is a good guy, which given how little the Brits seem to know he might actually be, or, if he really is trouble then I suppose we have to think he might be dirty but we are a long way from that. I"ll get Jackson to be discrete but any enquiries we make might spook him but there"s nothing else we can do. The tail probably won"t give us anything but I don"t like the timing. With the President here tomorrow the last thin g I want is a Secret Service guy hooked up in secret hand off"s with an international low life." "If you get anything let me know straigtht away - by radio if possible. I better shoot. If he noticed when I left he witll think this is the longest dump in the history of the world." 888 VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV O"Neil resists. Eventulally tells truth or puts off for another scene O"Neil contacts paramilitary buddies and goes after Mead CHAPTER 13793
views: | 3 |
posted: | 8/21/2011 |
language: | English |
pages: | 24 |


text:
Rubber Drops on Concerns About China Demand, Rising Stockpiles
Rubber retreated from an almost two-month high on concerns that demand from China may weaken after inventories climbed to a three-year high.
Rubber for delivery in January dropped 0.3 percent to end at 266.5 yen a kilogram ($2,730 a metric ton) on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange. The most-active contract earlier climbed to 268.8 yen, nearing a two-month high reached on Aug. 14. Futures have fallen 12 percent this year.
Natural-rubber inventories increased 4,457 tons to 122,645 tons, the highest level since February 2010, based on a survey of nine warehouses in Shanghai, Shandong, Yunnan, Hainan and Tianjin, according to the Shanghai Futures Exchange.
"Increasing rubber stockpiles raised concerns about Chinese demand," said Kazuhiko Saito, an analyst at broker Fujitomi Co. in Tokyo.
Rubber for delivery in January dropped 0.1 percent to close at 19,855 yuan ($3,243) a ton on the Shanghai Futures Exchange. Thai rubber free-on-board added 0.9 percent to 81.75 baht ($2.60) a kilogram today, according to the Rubber Research Institute of Thailand.
The Thai government planned to spend 30 billion baht to support farmers and rubber processors, Deputy Prime Minister Yukol Limlamthong said Aug. 15. The country has no plan to sell state inventories, he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Aya Takada in Tokyo at email@example.com; Supunnabul Suwannakij in Bangkok at firstname.lastname@example.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Brett Miller at email@example.com
Bloomberg reserves the right to edit or remove comments but is under no obligation to do so, or to explain individual moderation decisions.

subset: commoncrawl