Once In, Never Out

by Dan Mahoney

  “They won’t be renting it for a while,” Haarold answered.

  That didn’t make Thor feel any better. Although he was the homicide detective, there was something he found disturbing in his job that he could never admit to anyone. Thor had a weak stomach when it came to gore, so weak that he always took a few tablets of Dramamine before he went to a crime scene. The tablets prevented motion sickness and kept his lunch where it belonged as he did his job, but he still felt queasy as he examined the door of Suite 730.

  Haarold had rendered the heavy walnut door useless beyond repair. Besides the two nine-millimeter bullet holes in the lock, there was a long crack in the center that ran almost from top to bottom.

  Thor pushed the door open with his foot and Janus followed him into the entrance foyer of the suite. Thor had expected that most of the lights in the suite would have been blown out by the blast, but he was wrong. Lights were on in the sitting room to his left, in the bathroom to his right, and the foyer was illuminated by an ornate brass chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Directly in front of him was the master bedroom. The door was open and it was dark inside, but enough light seeped in from the foyer for Thor to see a body on the bed.

  The two men put their suitcases down. Thor opened his and took out a searchlight, a camera with a flash attached, and a pair of latex gloves. “Smell anything?” he asked Janus.

  “Yeah. Smoke. Burnt hair too, I think.”

  “Anything else?”

  Janus raised his large nose in the air and sniffed a few times. “Coffee?”

  “That’s what I think. Strong, burnt coffee.” Thor pulled on the gloves and turned on the searchlight. “First, let’s take a peek at the foreign secretary.” Followed by Janus, he walked into the sitting room and took a quick look around. There was no sign of any damage, so they went down the hall to the servant’s bedroom. Thor shined his searchlight into the small, darkened room.

  Sir Ian Smythe-Douglass had died in his pajamas and lay facedown on the floor next to the bed. Thor swung the beam around the room.

  “Not much damage,” Janus commented, and Thor had to agree. The windows were shattered, the rug was soaked, there were feathers everywhere, and the smell of smoke and coffee was strong, but there was no apparent structural damage. The walls and the dresser were intact, but the bed would require some work. The legs had collapsed, leaving the supporting box spring on the floor in one piece.

  The top mattress accounted for the feathers. Thor knew that the Saga would pamper its guests by placing a traditional Icelandic down mattress on top of the box spring. The bomb had been there, in the down mattress among the feathers, but the limited blast damage still had to be addressed and explained.

  Thor directed the searchlight beam upward and found part of the answer. There was a long depression in the ceiling above the bed.

  “Shape charge?” Janus asked.

  “Uh-huh. Let’s get to work, starting with his wife.”

  Janus followed him back to the entrance to the master bedroom, but waited outside. Thor went in, his feet sinking into the wet carpet as he walked to the bed. He took a breath and shined his light on the body.

  It was not as bad as Thor had expected, at least for him. It had been terrible for Penelope Smythe-Douglass, but quick. The sturdy double bed had withstood the blast and she was on her back on the center of it, lying in a pile of wet down feathers on the box spring and what was left of the down mattress. She wore a silk nightgown, but it was so blackened by the smoke that Thor could only guess at the color.

  The body was intact, but her face was a mess. Blood covered her nose, mouth, and ears, and her hair was burned. Her eyes were open and staring at the ceiling, so Thor shined his light up. He knew what he would find and it was there, bloodstains on the damaged ceiling above Penelope Smythe-Douglass’s head, and something else—small, black dots on the ceiling that he felt sure were burnt coffee grounds.

  He stepped back and shined his light around the room. Again, there were feathers everywhere, but considering that a bomb powerful enough to kill the woman had exploded in the room, there was no structural damage that Thor could see. He knew how it had been done.

  Thor brushed the feathers off the box spring and found what he expected—the Kevlar bomb blanket that had been placed under the charge in the down mattress. But there was still something missing.

  Thor walked around the bed, taking pictures of the body from every angle. Then he reloaded the camera and took twelve photos of the rest of the room as Janus watched from the foyer. Satisfied that he had every portion preserved on film, he spent ten minutes looking around and memorizing every detail before he rejoined Janus. “I’m going to need some help now,” Thor told him. “We have to move the body.”

  “Move it where?”

  “Right here would be fine,” Thor said, then went back into the bedroom. Janus followed him in and two minutes later they were back in the foyer with Penelope Smythe-Douglass on the floor at their feet.

  She looked worse in the lighted foyer than she had in the darkened bedroom. Thor could see that both her forearms were broken, her nose was smashed, and her top row of teeth was broken. He got a towel from the bathroom and placed it next to her head as Janus watched, puzzled. “We have to roll her over,” Thor told him.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Pieces of black plastic.”

  “Black plastic?”

  “Yeah, pieces of the radio-remote detonator. There’s none inside the bedroom that I can see, so there have to be pieces of it in her back.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Thor laid both her arms across her chest and together they rolled her over so that Penelope’s face lay in the towel. Among the many burnt feathers melted into the fabric of the nightgown, a half-inch sliver of melted black plastic protruded from the center of her back. Looking closer, Thor could see that many smaller pieces of plastic were melted into her burned nightgown.

  “You had that right,” Janus said. “Now can you tell me how you knew the plastic would be there?”

  “Easy. Both bombs went off at the same time, so they weren’t mechanically detonated. It was done by radio. There was a radio-remote detonator tuned to the same frequency attached to each bomb in each mattress. The bomber sent the signal and that was it for Mr. and Mrs. Smythe-Douglass. Propelled them to the ceilings, but didn’t do much else in the way of damage.”

  “How did he make the shape charge?”

  “Undid the stitching in the down mattress, took out all the feathers, and then laid a Kevlar bomb blanket on the bottom, probably fashioning it so that it looked like a baking pan. Then he laid in the radio-remote detonator and a couple of strips of det cord—”

  “Det cord?”

  “Round strips of American C-4 plastic explosive, comes in fifty-foot rolls. It’s pretty powerful stuff, but this bomber is clever and didn’t use much to get the job done. Probably two strips of det cord, maybe six meters total for both bombs.”

  “So all the explosive force was directed upwards?” Janus ventured.

  “I think so. It wasn’t the explosion that killed this poor woman, although I’m sure it ruptured her eardrums. She was killed when she hit the ceiling at a couple hundred kilometers per hour, like she was fired out of a cannon.”

  “Pretty sophisticated,” Janus commented.

  “Very sophisticated, especially when you throw in the coffee. He put freeze-dried crystals in the mattress to disguise the smell of the C-4, just in case we used a bomb dog to check the room. It’s an old trick the Colombians use to fool the American customs’ drug-sniffing dogs, and I’ve heard the IRA also uses it. The coffee overpowers the smell of the explosives.”

  “I see. Freeze-dried crystals that don’t give much of an odor until they’re heated,” Janus said.

  “Not to us, but Brandy would smell it. It’s the coffee that tells me we’re not looking for an Icelander.”

  Janus looked relieved, but then he took a moment to ex
amine Thor’s reasoning. He didn’t get it. “Because of the coffee you know that?” he asked incredulously.

  “Like you said. Anybody who placed those bombs yesterday would have needed some help from the staff. Right?”

  “That still makes sense. So?”

  “So Brandy’s been to this hotel quite a few times. Matter of fact, she’s been used almost every time a foreign dignitary stayed here during the past few years. All the staff knows her and they all know that she has one unusual trait for a dog—Brandy loves coffee.”

  It was news to Janus. “A dog who loves coffee?”

  “Loves it so much that she won’t work when there’s coffee around. She’s got to have it. Brandy would have smelled that coffee in the bomb from the elevator and then she would have gone right for it.”

  “So any member of the staff looking to hide a bomb absolutely wouldn’t put coffee in it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then who exactly are we looking for?”

  “I can’t be absolutely certain until we check the tapes from the hallway cameras, but I don’t think our bomber is going to show up on any video from yesterday. I’ll bet those bombs have been in those mattresses for a while.”

  “How long is that?” Janus asked.

  “A couple of days, at least.”

  “Impossible. Nobody knew the foreign secretary was coming a couple of days ago. He didn’t even know himself.”

  “He probably didn’t. But, somehow, the IRA did.”

  Three

  Janus was under intense pressure from both the press and the British ambassador, but Thor had insisted on completing his preliminary investigation before issuing any statement. It took nine hours, so while Thor worked on in the presidential suite, the British ambassador waited impatiently in Room 728 and most members of the press corps played cards, formulated theories, spread rumors, and increased their already substantial tabs at the Saga’s bar.

  At ten o’clock the reporters were stirred to activity when the bodies were brought down for removal to the morgue. The medical examiner accompanied them, and as the cameras rolled, he was interviewed. The only new information they got from him was that there had been two bomb blasts, but he refused to say anything else, referring the reporters to the chief of police.

  Janus had evolved into an Icelandic institution. He was very popular, highly respected, scrupulously honest, and therefore not a candidate for public mauling. It was a situation that could drive reporters to drink, and it did just that. The last time the Saga’s bar had enjoyed a better volume of business was when reporters from all over the world had headquartered themselves there during the Reykjavík Reagan-Gorbachev summit in 1989.

  By noon Thor was ready to leave. He had viewed the videotapes from the hallway security cameras, interviewed six members of the Saga’s staff, photographed and mapped every inch of the presidential suite, collected and tagged ninety-nine items of evidence, and lifted fifty-one latent fingerprints. It was time to process his evidence, but Thor recognized he didn’t have the equipment or expertise to do it properly alone. That was where Chatwick came in.

  Janus needed some time to draft his press statement, so he sent Thor to Room 728 to report to Chatwick. When the young ambassador answered the door, he surprised Thor by greeting him politely and correctly in Icelandic.

  Thor hadn’t known that Chatwick spoke the language, but was impressed that he had taken the time and trouble to learn a difficult tongue that was useless outside Iceland and spoken by fewer than three hundred thousand people in the world. He returned the greeting in Icelandic and was invited by Chatwick into the suite.

  The ambassador was informally dressed in jeans and a sport coat and had been watching the medical examiner’s interview on the BBC channel. He shut the TV off before they settled into the sitting room.

  First Thor had some questions for him. “Has anyone claimed responsibility for the bombings, yet?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Has the IRA ever pulled a bombing where they didn’t claim responsibility?”

  “Rarely, but it’s happened.”

  “Is it common knowledge in your country that Ian and his wife didn’t get along?”

  “No, I don’t believe so.”

  “Were they ever in Dublin together?”

  Chatwick looked surprised by the question, but he had the answer. “As a matter of fact, they were,” he said in English. “Last year there was a fairly complicated dispute over Irish immigration to the U.K., and Sir Ian managed to resolve it to the satisfaction of both governments.”

  Thor followed Chatwick’s switch to English. “Did they stay in a hotel or at your embassy while they were there?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but I’ll find out. I’m assuming by these questions that you believe the IRA was responsible for the bombing?”

  “That’s the way it looks to me right now. What I can tell you for sure is that Icelanders weren’t involved.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Chatwick said. “I’ve always been very comfortable here.”

  Chatwick’s stock was still climbing in Thor’s estimation. “You’re not surprised?” Thor asked.

  “No. I don’t see how you arrived at your conclusion yet, but from the outset I found it difficult to believe one of your people could have done it.”

  “Then I’ll tell you how. I’ve spoken to Jónas and he tells me you requested the presidential suite for the foreign secretary at ten-thirty yesterday morning. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. Sir Ian called me at ten and told me he was coming. He also asked me to make the arrangements.”

  “He told you it was to be an unpublicized visit?”

  “Yes. He specifically said that he wanted no press.”

  “Did he ask you to book the presidential suite for him?”

  “No, I did that on my own. He had never been here and I thought it would be a nice touch. Besides, I’ve dealt with Jónas before and he has a certain reputation.”

  “You told Jónas that the visit was confidential?”

  “Yes, and he assured me that word of it wouldn’t leak out from his staff.”

  “I’m sure it didn’t. Besides Jónas, only five other staff members knew of the foreign secretary’s presence here. All of them are longtime employees with a history of discretion.”

  “You’ve spoken to all five?” Chatwick asked.

  “Yes, and they all say they told no one else of the visit. I believe them and I’m certain none of them have anything to do with the bombs.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I’ve seen the videotapes.”

  “What videotapes?” Chatwick asked.

  Thor wasn’t surprised that Chatwick didn’t know about the hallway security cameras. They were well disguised and Jónas was always reluctant to discuss his security measures with anyone.

  “Come on, I’ll show you,” Thor said. Chatwick followed him to the door where Thor pointed out the cameras in the hallway and explained how they operated.

  “So there’s a videotape showing everybody who’s ever gone into that suite,” Chatwick surmised.

  “No, that’s one of my problems.”

  “They don’t change the videotapes?”

  “Not usually. When the tape is completed the video recorder rewinds it and the camera starts taping over the old images.”

  “But only when there’s motion in the hallway?”

  “Yes. Usually about a week fits on each two-hour tape before it rewinds,” Thor explained.

  “So you still have pictures of everyone who was in the suite yesterday.”

  “Yes, I’ve got video on everyone who went in there yesterday, along with the time they entered and left. There’s a date/time stamp on the videotape.”

  “So you must have a picture of the bomber.”

  “Maybe. What I can tell you is that the bombs were in place before yesterday.”

  Chatwick looked confused. “I don’t see how
that’s possible.”

  “Let’s go back inside and I’ll explain how it is possible,” Thor suggested.

  Chatwick followed Thor back into the sitting room and the two men resumed their seats.

  “The first person to enter the suite yesterday was Jónas,” Thor said. “He went in at ten-forty-one yesterday morning to check out the suite after you booked it. He left at ten-forty-six. At eleven-thirteen a maid went in with her cleaning cart. She dusted, stocked the bar, changed the sheets, and left at twelve-ten.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. No one else went in until you arrived with Smythe-Douglass and his wife at two minutes after four yesterday afternoon. The computer hooked up to the card entry system backs that up.”

  “How about after we left for the meetings?”

  “Nobody until you got back.”

  “How about the windows?” Chatwick asked.

  “According to both Jónas and the maid, they were locked from the inside. They still are.”

  “What you’re saying is that the bomber knew the foreign secretary was coming to Iceland and would be staying in the presidential suite before the decision to come here was even made.”

  “Hard to believe,” Thor conceded, “But that’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “How?”

  “I’m still putting that together, but I’m betting that whoever was behind the Irish claim to Rockall has to be involved.”

  “Someone in the Irish government?”

  “Probably someone in the Irish cabinet. Somebody who hates the British, somebody connected to the IRA, somebody brilliant and diabolical. Ring any bells?”

  “You just described Timothy O’Bannion,” Chatwick said. “Irish minister for finance and a devout Finian.”

  “A Finian?”

  “A leading member of the Sinn Fein party, the political arm of the IRA. He’s from County Donegal, right next to Ulster.”

  “In the Irish Republic?”

  “Yes, in the Republic, but Donegal’s still an IRA stronghold.”

  “You think he hates the British enough to be behind something like this?”