‘You have another plan?’
Coburn wished he did. ‘Depends on how involved Armstrong is,’ he said. ‘I need to see if he’s sent me an email or a fax before I do anything else.’
‘You wish for Lin to drive us to your apartment?’
‘If he doesn’t mind. We can grab a taxi if he does.’
‘No, no. He will be happy to.’ Hari took a last glance around. ‘For all we have achieved today, Miss Cameron will think we both are fools.’
Heather wasn’t sitting in the front seat of the car. She was waiting across the street, but had seen them leaving the hotel and realized they hadn’t been away for long enough.
She hurried through the traffic and came to meet them. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.
‘Left our run too late.’ Coburn kept walking. ‘Looks like he pulled out days ago.’
‘So we haven’t found out anything.’
‘No.’ He opened the car door for her.
Before she got in she had something to say. ‘I know you think it’s a bad idea’ — she hesitated for a second — ‘but why not let me talk to my godfather? If we don’t get some outside help soon we’re never going to get anywhere, are we?’
He wasn’t ready to commit himself, needing to rearrange his thoughts and hoping that the drive across town would give him a chance to figure out what his next step ought to be.
In spite of the setback, the feeling that he could solve the puzzle by himself hadn’t gone away. The answer was no clearer than it had been on the morning after the attack on the village when he’d first become aware of it, but it was still there nagging at him, and strong enough to make him wonder what he had to do to get a better hold on it.
He’d been wrong to imagine that the drive would provide him with an opportunity to think of a solution. It didn’t, compromised initially by Heather reaching out to place her hand on his for some reason, and later on as they neared the city centre, by Hari offering advice on short cuts and routes that in the end seemed to make little difference to how long the journey took.
As a result, it was late afternoon when Lin finally dropped them off, and well past five o’clock by the time they’d thanked him for his help and come up to Coburn’s apartment to reconsider their position.
Since then Heather had been sitting slumped in a chair with her eyes closed, and Hari had started pacing again, sucking on an unlit cigarette while he waited for Coburn to check his messages.
In the fax machine, the fresh roll of paper was unused, but Armstrong had sent two emails, one dated yesterday, the other the day before.
‘You have news?’ Hari asked.
‘Captain Celestino still hasn’t lodged a report about the Pishan being boarded, so Armstrong says I can draw my own conclusions from that.’
‘He says nothing else?’
‘Only that he’s asked the Americans to run a check on O’Halloran, but he hasn’t heard anything back and doesn’t think he will.’
‘I see.’ Hari frowned. ‘Then once again our luck is not so good.’
Heather levered herself out of her chair. ‘I’ll make some coffee,’ she said.
‘There isn’t any milk.’ Coburn remembered throwing it out before he left. ‘There’s beer in the fridge, though.’
She went to get it, but had taken only a few steps before she stopped to inspect the sole of her shoe. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve just trodden on someone’s contact lens.’
Coburn was barely quick enough. He launched himself at her, spinning her away from the fridge and slamming her back hard against the kitchen wall.
She regained her balance and turned on him half angry and half scared. ‘You hurt me,’ she said. ‘What was that for? What did I do?’
‘Don’t move.’ He knelt down and removed her shoe. ‘Stay right where you are.’
The glass she’d trodden on had splintered into fragments, some of which were embedded in the sole. But none of them were the right shape to have come from a contact lens.
‘Jesus Christ.’ He remained on his knees, staring at the pieces of glass.
‘What is it?’ Hari was bemused.
‘I’ll tell you in a minute.’ Coburn had broken out in a sweat, endeavouring to recall lessons he’d spent the last two years trying to forget.
To make sure of things he carried out a search of the whole apartment, examining light fittings, checking for pressure pads under the carpet and removing the lid of the toilet cistern before he felt confident enough to return to the kitchen and switch off the power to the fridge.
‘Tell me this isn’t about what I think it is.’ Heather was beginning to understand.
‘Only one way to find out.’ He gave her back her shoe. ‘You and Hari wait outside down the hall.’
The Frenchman had been slower to understand. ‘You believe there is something dangerous in your refrigerator?’ he said.
‘Yep.’ As an additional precaution Coburn removed the plug from its socket.
‘And you can know this because of what you see on Miss Cameron’s shoe?’
‘There are two ways to rig a domestic fridge. You can either use a cord that pulls the pin on a grenade when someone opens the door, or you can use the door switch that turns on the inside light. All you have to do is replace the bulb with a couple of wires that are connected to a detonator and some plastic explosive.’
‘You have encountered these techniques before?’
Coburn nodded. ‘If you want to use the door switch method, it can be tough to unscrew the bulbs because the moisture in the fridge makes them corrode. The best way is to smash the glass then twist out the metal bit with a pair of pliers.’
Hari frowned. ‘So you think that while you are away you have been visited by someone who has failed to properly clear up the glass from the bulb he breaks.’
‘It’s a guess,’ Heather said. ‘It’s just another one of your guesses.’
‘Do what I said.’ Coburn wanted to get on with it. ‘Both of you. Go right to the end of the hall. Stay there for a couple of minutes before you come back.’
Hari remained where he was. ‘You do not have to do this,’ he said. ‘We can find another means — one that does not require you to remain in the room.’
‘I’ll be fine. Just take Heather and get out of here.’
She was equally reluctant to go, accompanying Hari to the door but glancing back at Coburn before she left the apartment.
As soon as he was alone, he started counting under his breath, imagining each of her footsteps until he judged she was sufficiently far away from any potential blast.
Keeping his hands as steady as he could, he dug his fingertips into the soft plastic seal around the door and very carefully eased it open.
The smell told him he didn’t have to worry about a hand grenade. The fridge was filled with the unmistakable and distinctive vapour signature of Semtex.
An innocuous-looking reddish-orange lump of the stuff was sitting on the top rack. It was the size of a half-pound pack of butter, armed with a detonator and wired to an adaptor that had been screwed into the socket where the bulb had been.
The set-up was exactly as he’d expected it to be. What he hadn’t bargained on was the quantity of explosive — not just enough to kill anyone who’d been standing in front of the door, but a charge so large that it would have destroyed the entire apartment.
The shock had taken a while to sink in, but now that it had done, it was acting as a trigger, forcing him to connect the present with the past in a way that until this moment had made no sense — a link he’d always known was there, but which had been too elusive and too disturbing for him to believe it ever could be true — an explanation for everything that had suddenly become unequivocally and frighteningly clear.