That’s a cold piece of work, Murray told himself. Even with her hair wet, with no makeup, she was pretty enough, he thought. Nice complexion. It wouldn’t hurt her to knock off eight or ten pounds, but in nice clothes that wouldn’t matter very much. You could pass her on the street, or sit next to her in a bar and offer to buy her a drink, and you’d never suspect that she was carrying two pounds of high explosives in her purse. Thank God we don’t have anything like that at home . . . He wondered how well the Bureau would do against such a threat. Even with all their resources, the scientific and forensic experts who back up the special agents in the field, this was no easy crime to deal with. For any police force, the name of the game was wait for the bad guys to make a mistake. You had to play for the breaks, just like a football team waited for a turnover. The problem was, the crooks kept getting better, kept learning from their mistakes. It was like any sort of competition. Both sides became increasingly sophisticated. But the criminals always had the initiative. The cops were always playing catchup ball.
“Well, Dan, any critique? Do we measure up to FBI standards?” Owens inquired with the slightest amount of smugness.
“Don’t give me that crap, Jimmy!” Murray grinned. Things were settled down now. The detectives were fully engaged in cataloging the physical evidence in the confidence that they already had a solid criminal case. “I’d say you have this one pretty cold. You know how lucky you are not to have our illegal-search-and-seizure rules?” Not to mention some of our judges.
“Finished,” the photographer said.
“Excellent,” replied Sergeant Bob Highland, who was running the crime scene.
“How’d you get here so fast, Bob?” Murray wanted to know. “You take the tube, or what?”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Highland laughed. “Perhaps we caught the traffic right. We were here within eleven minutes. You weren’t that far behind us. We booted the door and had Dwyer in custody in under five seconds. Isn’t it amazing how easy it can be — if you have the bloody information you need!”
“Can I come in now?”
“Certainly.” Owens waved him into the apartment.
Murray went right to the bureau drawer with the explosives. The FBI man was an expert on explosive devices. He and Owens crouched over the collection.
“Looks like Czech,” Murray muttered.
“It is,” another detective said. “From Skoda works, you can tell from the wrapping. These are American, though. California Pyronetics, model thirty-one electronic detonator.” He tossed one — in a plastic bag — to Murray.
“Damn! They’re turning up all over the place — a shipment of these little babies got hijacked a year and a half ago. They were heading for an oil field in Venezuela, and got taken outside Caracas,” Murray explained. He gave the small black device a closer look. “The oil field guys love ’em. Safe, reliable, and damned near foolproof. This is as good as the stuff the Army uses. State of the art.”
“Where else have they turned up?” Owens asked.
“We’re sure about three or four. The problem is, they’re so small that it’s not always possible to identify what’s left. A bank in Puerto Rico, a police station in Peru — those were political. The other one — maybe two — were drug related. Until now they’ve all been on the other side of the Atlantic. As far as I know, this is the first time they’ve showed up here. These detonators have lot numbers. You’ll want to check them against the stolen shipment. I can get a telex off tonight, have you an answer inside an hour.”
“Thank you, Dan.”
Murray counted five one-kilo blocks of explosive. The Czech plastique had a good reputation for quality. It was as potent as the stuff Du Pont made for American military use. One block, properly placed, could take a building down. With the Pyronetics timers, Miss Dwyer could have placed five separate bombs, set them for delayed detonation — as much as a month — and been a thousand miles away when they went off.
“You saved some lives tonight, gentlemen. Good one.” Murray looked up. The apartment had a single window facing to the rear. The window had a pull-down blind that was all the way down, and some cheap, dirty curtains. Murray wondered what this flat cost to rent. Not much, he was sure. The heat was turned way up, and the room was getting stuffy. “Anybody mind if I let some air in here?”
“Excellent idea, Dan,” Owens answered.
“Let me do it, sir.” A detective with gloves on put up the blind and then the window. Everything in the room would be dusted for fingerprints also, but opening the window wouldn’t harm anything. A breeze cooled things off in an instant.
“That’s better.” The FBI representative took a deep breath, scarcely noticing the smell of diesel exhaust from the London cabs . . .
Something was wrong.
It hit Murray as a surprise. Something was wrong. What? He looked out the window. To the left was a — probably a warehouse, a blank four-story wall. Past it on the right, he could see the outline of the Tower of London, standing over the River Thames. That was all. He turned his head to see Owens, also staring out the window. The Commander of C-13 turned his head and looked at Murray, a question on his face also.
“Yes,” Owens said.
“What was it that guy on the phone said?” Murray muttered.
Owens’ head bobbed. “Exactly. Sergeant Highland?”
“Yes, Commander?”
“The voice on the phone. What exactly did it say, and what exactly did it sound like?” Owens kept looking out the window.
“The voice had . . . a Midlands accent, I should think. A man’s voice. He said that he was looking in the window, and saw explosives and some wires. We have it all on tape, of course.”
Murray reached through the open window and ran a finger along the outside surface of the glass. It came back dirty. “It sure wasn’t a window-washer who called in.” He leaned out the window. There was no fire escape.
“Someone atop the warehouse, perhaps — no,” Owens said at once. “The angle isn’t right, unless she had the material spread out on the floor. That is rather odd.”
“Break-in? Maybe someone got in here, saw the stuff, and decided to call in like a good citizen?” Murray asked. “That doesn’t sound very likely.”
Owens shrugged. “No telling, is there? A boyfriend she dumped — I think for the moment we can be content with counting our blessings, Dan. There are five bombs that will never hurt anyone. Let’s get out of everyone’s way and send that telex off to Washington. Sergeant Highland, gentlemen, this was well done! Congratulations to you all for some splendid police work. Carry on.”
Owens and Murray left the building quietly. Outside they found a small crowd being restrained by about ten uniformed constables. A TV news crew was on the scene with its bright lights. These were enough to keep them from seeing across the street. This block had three small pubs. In the doorway of one stood a soft-looking man with a pint of bitter in his hand. He showed no emotion, not even curiosity, as he looked across the street. His memory recorded the faces he saw. His name was Dennis Cooley.
Murray and Owens drove to New Scotland Yard headquarters, where the FBI agent made his telex to Washington. They didn’t discuss the one anomaly that the case had unexpectedly developed, and Murray left Owens to his work. C-13 had broken yet another bomb case — and done so in the best way, without a single casualty. It meant that Owens and his people would have a sleepless night of paperwork, and preparing reports for the Home Office bureaucracy, and press releases for Fleet Street, but that was something they would gladly accept.
Ryan’s first day back at work was easier than he had expected. His prolonged absence had forced the History Department to reassign his classes, and in any case it was almost time for Christmas break, and nearly all of the mids were looking forward to being home for the holidays. Class routine was slightly relaxed, and even the plebes enjoyed a respite from the upperclassmen’s harassment in the wake of the win over Army. For Ryan, the result was a fairish collection of letters and documents piled on his In tray, and a quiet day with which to deal with them. He’d arrived in his office at 7:30; by quarter to five he’d dealt with most of his paperwork, and Ryan felt that he’d delivered an honest day’s work. He was finishing a series of test questions for the semester’s final exam when he smelled cheap cigar smoke and heard a familiar voice.