Brute Force ns-11 Page 6

  23

  The house phone rang twice moments before a set of headlights swept up the drive. He drove straight to the back of the house and left the engine running.

  The girls were ready. I shepherded them out to the car and saw them safely into the back before approaching Dom's window.

  'Do you know who I mean when I say Liam Duff?'

  'He's a household name.'

  'Since when?'

  'Since he was murdered last week.'

  24

  I hadn't seen a command wire earlier on. I didn't even know if there was a device. But if there was a command wire, there would still be somebody out there, watching and waiting for me to get into the car. Maybe the same guy who'd given Liam Duff the good news with a Black and Decker drill before finishing him off with a single shot to the head. Dom had checked out some pictures of the murder scene. He'd seen some serious shit in his time, but they had really turned his stomach.

  I crawled out of the back door of the house, hugging the walls as I made my way to the front. I had a small torch I'd found in the fuse cupboard in my left hand and the kitchen knife in the other.

  At the corner of the house I got down on my stomach and used my elbows and the tips of my boots to inch myself towards the car. Frozen water and mud seeped through my jeans and fleece, triggering some major league goose-bumps. Faster movement could give me away, and this way I had time to look and listen as the ice-cold wind rustled the grass and peeled a layer or two of skin off my face.

  When I got to the car, I rolled onto my back and wriggled until my head was under the chassis. I made sure my fingers covered the lens of the torch before I switched it on. If I was being watched, it would be from the high ground the other side of the road, but I didn't want to make it any easier to spot me than I had to.

  The beam brushed across it at once – a lunchbox-sized Tupperware container fixed under the driver's seat. Two big magnets had been stuck to the base with Isopon so it was quick to slap into position.

  I still couldn't see a command wire. There was no antenna for a remote detonation.

  I'd already shut myself off from the outside world. My entire focus was on this box.

  There was a tiny hole with blackened edges in the lid of the container; it looked like it had been melted with a hot needle. A length of thin, eight-pound fishing line glimmered in my pencil-thin torch beam as it stretched from the hole towards the front of the vehicle. It was as taut as a bowstring; I didn't have to see where it went to know it was tied to a fish-hook that would have been snagged to the front offside wheel.

  That meant I could rule out any remote detonation. There wasn't anybody on the hill. This device was going to explode the moment the car moved, and that pissed me off. There were innocent people involved here. The bomber might at least have had the decency to make sure he had eyes-on and killed only the intended target.

  And the target had to be me: otherwise why place it under the driver's seat?

  I wasn't going to touch it yet. I wasn't going to do anything for now but shine the torch around the semi-opaque Tupperware. It was fairly thin plastic, but the tiny beam wasn't strong enough to allow me to see inside.

  The frozen ground numbed my back and hands. I found two more strands of fishing line, about three or four inches long, coming out of the other side. The priority had been to find out if it was armed, and how – and now I knew.

  Every device has a safety catch. You place it, arm it, and then pull the safety pin. The three or four inches of fishing line would have started as just one or two, taped on the outside of the box to avoid them snagging. The fact that they'd been pulled meant the device was now rigged and ready to detonate. And any bomb-maker worth his salt would also have rigged an anti-handling device. Until I knew what kind this one carried, I couldn't cut the fishing line attached to the wheel and pull the box away.

  I wriggled out from under the car and walked back to the house. Rummaging in the kitchen drawers, I kitted myself out with a dinner knife and a couple of cigarette lighters. Then I walked back to the car and went back to work.

  25

  My first job was to deal with the fishing line leading to the front wheel. No way was I just going to cut it with the knife. There was no telling how much tension it would take to trigger the thing, and cutting would create tension. Instead, I flicked the lighter and played the flame close to the device so there'd be no line left dangling to snag or pull.

  The prime initiation mechanism was now dead, but that wasn't the same as saying the whole IED was. I still had to assume there was an anti-handling device.

  I flicked the lighter again and held the tip of the dinner knife in the flame until it glowed. It took so long my thumb got scalded.

  I put the knife straight to the two-strand end of the box and managed to cut through the plastic for a few seconds before the steel went cold. Then I had to roast my thumb all over again. I finally cut a two-inch square hole, and shone the torch inside.

  There were no surprises. My fingertips touched a thin plastic sheet about halfway down. It would be sitting on top of a slab of PE. A clothes peg had been glued in place at each end. The torch beam also caught the outline of a test tube. Aball bearing glinted inside. I'd found the anti-handling device.

  I probed further. I could feel a drawing pin in the jaws of each of the clothes pegs. They were touching, and therefore completing an electrical circuit. I felt for the plastic disc that would have sat between them until whoever had placed the bomb yanked it away with the two strands of fishing line.

  I pressed open the peg and eased the disc back into place. The drawing-pin terminals were separated again. The circuit was broken. That just left the anti-handling booby trap.

  The bomber had wedged a little bit of cardboard under one end of the Tupperware box to create enough of a gradient for the ball bearing to roll to the bottom of the tube. As soon as it rolled back up, either because the car was mobile, or because the device had been disturbed, the ball bearing would touch the two nails protruding from the rubber bung in the open end. The nails were connected to wires. Asecond circuit would have been completed when the ball bearing bridged the gap.

  I pulled one wire free, took a deep breath and pulled the box gingerly from the chassis. It wasn't easy; the magnets were strong, and I didn't want to jerk the device.

  Keeping it nice and level in case there was yet another anti-handling mechanism I hadn't spotted, I lowered it to the ground next to me. I wriggled out into the open air then reached back and retrieved it.

  I carried it into the house. It weighed a good couple of kilos, more than enough PE to blow all three of us to smithereens. Half a kilo would have killed the driver, especially if the charge had been shaped to direct most of the brisance up my arse and through the top of my head. Whoever had placed it didn't give a shit about collateral damage.

  I placed the bomb on the kitchen table then went into the front room and switched on the TV. I didn't have to wait long. As I hopped from channel to channel, my old mate Richard Isham appeared on the screen.

  'You were at his funeral today,' the reporter said. 'Any thoughts on Liam Duff you'd like to share?' Isham did his best to conjure up a look of infinite grief. 'I've known him since we were both in the cages of Long Kesh. He was a popular and likable person.'

  Yeah, right. Until about two weeks ago.

  Isham said he'd been drafting a speech when the call came through to tell him of Duff's murder. 'The news came as a tremendous shock and surprise – especially the horrific way in which he had died.'

  How had he reacted to the revelation that Duff had been a British double agent?

  Isham gave a shrug of his shoulders. 'Philosophically.'

  Any thoughts on who'd murdered him?

  The camera pulled back for a wider shot of the funeral cortège, and I caught a fleeting glimpse of Little Miss Camcorder. She was filming the interview.

  Isham was swift to align himself with the London and Dublin governments.
'Neither of them believe Republicans killed him. The IRA said it did not kill Duff and I believe them. You have to remember, Special Branch and the British intelligence agencies are forever trying to undermine and work against the peace process. Investigations in the past have found evidence of British agencies being involved in dirty tricks and criminal acts, including murder. The jury is out on this one.'

  I'd seen enough.

  I went back to the kitchen and switched on all the lights. Only now did I risk peeling off the lid. It was a simple but extremely well-made device. Every component had been glued onto the sheet of plastic resting on top of the big yellow block of plastic explosive. All the wires connecting the clothes-peg and test-tube circuits to the battery in the corner were glued down. This wasn't amateur hour.

  I disconnected the wires from the battery terminals one at a time, and then removed the battery altogether. I touched the ends of the wires to earth them, and then twisted them together. It could take less than two ohms of current to set one of these off, and you generate that just by rubbing your hands together. Now no amount of electrical leakage in the house or even a freak thunderstorm could detonate this thing.

  I prised the plastic circuit board away from the yellow slab and cut the two wires leading from it. None of this red wire, blue wire business – I just cut whatever I could.

  Once the det was out, I twisted its wires together and put it to one side. All that was left was the block of Semtex. They hadn't skimped. There was enough there to blow up an armoured Land Rover. Without a detonator, the PE was harmless. You can even burn it, which was exactly what I intended to do.

  A lot of care and attention had gone into the construction of the circuit. All four drawing pins had been roughened with emery cloth to ensure a good contact. Even the nails inside the test tube had been rubbed down, and the ball bearing had been polished free of any contamination. And most significant of all, every one of the connections between wires was finished off with Chinese pigtails.

  If nothing else, I knew where this fucker had been to bomb school.

  26

  I dug a hole about a foot deep with a big cooking spoon not too far away from the back door, threw in the det and replaced the earth. I'd connected a metre or so of two-strand wire I'd ripped from a table lamp to its terminals. I couldn't just leave the device lying around. The easiest way to dispose of it was with a controlled explosion, and then to burn the PE separately.

  I touched the wires to the battery terminals, but the plan went the way of all the others I'd made this Christmas. There was no dull thud in the mud as the circuit was completed. Yet the wiring was correct, and the det hadn't been tampered with. It was very rare for a det to malfunction, so that could only leave the battery. I touched the terminals to my tongue, with no effect. No mild fizz. Batteries keep their charge better in cold conditions, so it could only mean the fucking idiots had used a dud and not tested it.

  I took the bulb out of the torch, connected the wires to it and switched it on. There was a dull, reassuring thud and a tremor in the mud.

  I scooped a few handfuls to one side and threw in the slab of PE. I held a lighter to a corner. It ignited, and burned rapidly with a hiss and a bright white flame. All it was doing was combusting as it would have done if the det had initiated it, but much more slowly. It still generated enough heat to melt metal, and made short shrift of the Tupperware and the circuit board. I pushed the mud back over the residue and went back inside.

  The girls had taken their suitcases with them. The only stuff left was the Wii machine, my holdall and the mountain of bedding. I packed, locked up, went out, opened the boot and threw it in.

  I drove down to the road and turned left. Dom had checked out Duff's address. I checked the maps. It was sixty-four Ks to the north. An hour maybe, an hour and a half at the most.

  Who would have murdered him? Dom had got out of his car and taken me out of earshot. The papers were full of conjecture. One of them had even conducted an opinion poll. Most of their readers thought it was PIRA, but some suspected the Brits. Who knew what beans the old sailor boy had been about to spill? The only question I wanted an answer to was: whatever individual, faction or organization was responsible, had they also planted the device under my car?

  The link looked cast-iron, which was why I was going to Duff's to see what I could see. The police had probably bagged everything up and taken it away, but I might see something that they had missed.

  As I drove, the same question ricocheted around in my head. Who knew both how to find me, and how to construct and plant a device? Unless it was some totally random hater of tourists or Merc drivers, he probably knew how to find me again. That was a good thing, as far as I was concerned. Next time I'd be waiting.

  I pulled into town and parked outside the Spar. Before getting out of the car I checked for anyone watching or waiting. I memorized the last three digits of any passing plate for later.

  I got out, zipped up my muddy fleece, and headed into the shop. The old guy behind the counter didn't look startled or surprised to see me alive. It was a fair assumption he wasn't the tout. He asked me how my Christmas was going, which was probably a superfluous question given that I was clutching a pack of manky, two-day-old sandwiches, some ready-salted, and a can of Coke. No, mate, this ain't quite the way I'd imagined the festive season turning out.

  Back out on the dimly lit street I didn't stop to check who was looking and waiting, just got back into the car and drove. If they were there, I'd soon know about it.

  Maybe it was Dom they were after? Maybe they'd confused us. There were a good few people who might feel they had a score to settle with him. Dom had lifted a lot of lids over the years that everyone from PIRA to the Firm would have preferred to remain sealed. It was Dom who'd reported the story about the busting of the drug-smuggling ring the Yes Man ran over here. But he was only the messenger. He didn't claim any credit for it. I was the one who'd made enemies of the drug chain that would have to start all over again . . .

  After fifty minutes I turned off the main road and onto a narrow lane. The track that led to Duff's house was a mile and a half further north.

  Maybe my enemy was inside the Firm. Maybe the bomb-maker hadn't been shown how to use pigtails in one of the Middle Eastern camps before coming home to put it into practice; maybe he was one of the original trainers now working for the Firm?

  The Firm had the motive. Sundance and Trainers were small fry, low life like me. No one would be pissed off about them becoming history. But the Yes Man?

  I came to the track leading to Duff's cottage, and carried straight on. Parked right across the gate was a white Ford with the word Garda emblazoned in black across the fluorescent yellow flash along its side. The two officers inside watched me intently. I was probably the first sign of life they'd seen all shift.

  I'd have to carry on north. I couldn't turn round and come back past them again. They'd probably already logged my number.

  I pushed the Merc another three or four miles before I finally hit the junction I wanted. I turned right and had gone no more than half a mile when my mobile rang. It was Dom.

  'Nick, I've just received a really weird message from the station . . . A man called, fifties maybe. English. He said—'

  'Don't say it. Have you got to where I thought you were going?'

  'Yes.'

  'I'm on my way.'

  27

  The first time I'd gone to Dom's house, the cab driver told me that on the Dublin Monopoly board, the streets in his area were the purple squares. As soon as we'd got there, I could see why. These were big, fuck-off, four-storey houses set back from the road. They had huge rectangular windows, so the grand could look out on the less fortunate. Raised stone staircases led one floor up to very solid and highly glossed front doors.

  It was just coming to first light as I drove down the road. I wasn't going to try and hide the car or be covert. What was the point?

  Lights were still on in several of the
houses and curtains were open to display the gilded furniture and big chandeliers to best effect.

  I was still trying to work out what to say to Tallulah and Ruby. I'd keep up the dud boiler story until it went to rat shit.

  I drove past 6 Series BMWs and shiny 4x4s. The last time I'd walked past so many brand-new cars I'd been in a Middle East showroom. This place was knee-deep in euros.

  The hall light of No. 88 shone through a glass panel over a wide, shiny wooden door. I couldn't see any light or movement through the front windows or upstairs. I guessed they'd all be in the kitchen area at the back.

  I parked right outside the house. I wanted to be able to keep an eyeball on Mr Avis's forty grand's worth.

  A car went past. Its last three digits weren't any of the combinations I'd memorized. I got out and went and knocked on the heavy iron lion's head on the front door.