Koenig nodded, waiting to see if there was more.
Burkhart thought again, but decided to leave his instructions at that. There were bound to be heat sensors, an alarm of some kind, and his band would have to be away from here before anyone responded. They also needed time to see that their tracks were scattered as they retraced them, though much of what had been underfoot as they approached was blue ice, and he believed the wind would take care of the light imprints they’d made. The trick was to be careful of overkill, balance his objectives against the risk of discovery, cause sufficient damage to take the plant out of commission while making it appear accidental. As it was, the fire’s rapid ignition and intensity would bring about considerable flooding beyond the initial destructive burst, even if automatic cutoff occurred when the pump went down — an interrupt mechanism Burkhart had no doubt would be in place.
Prompting Koenig to get to work, he watched him remove the pump motor’s cover plate, then slip off his outer glove and reach into a belt pouch for a laminate squeeze tube of the type that might contain toothpaste or pharmaceutical ointment.
Koenig unscrewed its cap, pulled off its airtight nozzle seal, then ran the nozzle slowly over the motor’s exposed wiring and components, pinching the tube between his thumb and forefinger to dispense a spare, smooth coating of its glutinous contents. Within seconds he’d moved on to the connector valve.
Although Gabriel Morgan had never said where he’d procured the incendiary material, Burkhart’s independent sources had rumored that it was engineered in a now-defunct Canadian laboratory operated by El Tio, the head of a transnational underworld combine who was alternately rumored to be dead or in hiding. Wherever it came from, Burkhart knew the pyrotechnic solgel nanocomposite was a product of far-boundary chemical technologies.
Standard military-grade thermate — or TH3—was a fine granular mixture of iron oxide, aluminum, and barium that generated temperatures of between 5,500° and 7000° Fahrenheit when ignited, sufficient heat to melt through a one-half-inch-thick steel sheet, its combustive reaction producing a molten iron slag that could do further, extensive damage to metal surfaces and equipment. There were, however, quantitative and qualitative limitations to its precision usage. It required slightly over twenty-five ounces of TH3 powder to generate a forty-second burn of significant destructive yield, and conventional mixing processes resulted in somewhat heterogeneous and volatile compounds that could have inconsistent results. Because the distribution of ordinary thermate’s constituents was uneven, a small amount was less reliable than a larger amount — much as a pinch of mixed salt and pepper might be noticeably short one or the other ingredient, while chances were an entire shakerful would not.
The solgel process synthesized — in essence, grew—thermate’s molecular chemical components within a matrix of crystallized silica gel, encasing them in beadlike particles a thousandth of a meter in size. So uniform and energetic were the beads that each was like a microscopic incendiary grenade. For Burkhart’s purposes, they had been implanted within a pH-neutral material that resembled soft putty and contained an ethylene glycol additive to lower its freezing point to minus-30°F, allowing it to retain its malleable consistency in ECW conditions.
Burkhart wondered how many infinitesimal thermatic particles were contained in a single drop of the material. Thousands, by fast estimate. Perhaps tens of thousands. The desalinization plant was going down, and even returning it to partial functionality would be no small feat.
Now he stood quietly as Langern climbed onto the platform and got a spool of timed initiator cord and clippers from one of his packs. When he finished applying the thermate putty, Koening helped him set the lengths of cord, snapped the plate back over the pump’s motor, then looked over his shoulder at Burkhart.
“Fertig,” he said in German. “We’re ready to ignite the material.”
Burkhart looked at him, nodded.
“Do it,” he said.
The woman was taller than Nessa had thought she would be, slightly younger, but unmistakably English. She crossed the breakfast room of the hotel with the air of someone who knew her place in the world — at its pinnacle.
Nessa waited for her to pick up the menu before going over to the table. The corners of the detective’s eyes scratched and her mouth was parched, but she knew those annoyances would vanish as soon as she opened her mouth.
“I beg your pardon,” said Constance Burns.
“Yes, I suppose you do,” Nessa told her. “My name is Nessa Lear and I’m with Interpol. No, thank you, sit here a wee bit, please,” she told the woman, grabbing her arm firmly and pinning it to the table.
Burns’s eyes seemed as if they might pop out and strike her in the face. Nessa flattened her right hand against the underside of the table, ready to overturn it if the bitch tried to get away.
Not that she would get very far. The building was surrounded by the Swiss police.
“My friends at the door there, the very handsome lads in the suits, are with the national police force,” Nessa told Burns. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the German name for it, which they seem to use here; I was never very good with languages in school, and now going from French to German with English in between has gotten my brain in a twist. Plus I’ve had no sleep, tracking you down.”
“Miss—”
“In a few minutes, my friends over there will take you away. You’re wanted in connection with an inquiry in Scotland. Some accidents. Or murders. Definitely murders. But questions have been raised concerning shipments of depleted uranium, and I suspect they will be looking to you for answers.”
Burns jerked her arm, but Nessa held it down firmly. She really was tired; she could feel the burning sensation in her muscle as she pressed against the table.
“Don’t be in such a hurry,” Nessa said. “I was hoping you might help me so that I could help you in your future life, such as it is. I’m seeking Marc Elata.”
“Who is he?”
“A forger. A very good one.”
Burns made a dismissive sound.
“Gabriel Morgan?” Nessa asked.
“The bastard. The bloody, sodding bastard!” Burns screamed, and pounded the table with her free hand. “He’s left me to take the blame for everything, hasn’t he?”
“Everything?”
Burns went silent. Nessa waited nearly half a minute before asking, “Nothing else?”
She waited a few more seconds, then waved over the Swiss detectives. Burns pulled her hand away as Nessa let go, holding it to her chest as if it had been hurt.
Maybe it had. It did look quite red. But perhaps because the two policemen who prodded her shoulders did not appear terribly sympathetic, Burns made no comment as she rose and walked from the room under their escort.
John Theiber, the Swiss liaison — a tall, wide-shouldered man with gorgeous blond hair — came over as they left, saying something in clipped German to the men before turning toward Nessa.
“Your office in Paris wishes you to call,” he said in an English so perfect the Queen would have assumed he was one of her subjects. “A Mr. Jairdain.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
Nessa punched the number as Captain Theiber took a few steps away to accord her privacy.
Such manners.
“Jairdain.”
“What’s up?” she asked.
“About a half hour ago, we received a strange e-mail, beaucoup strange, sent to our public e-mail address,” said the Frenchman. “It was from Elata.”
“Elata?”
“ ‘Picassos at Castello Dinelli now. Quickly. Elata.’ That’s the message.”