The guns were brand new Heckler & Koch pocket autos of a kind Coburn hadn’t come across before, nicely made and fully loaded, but unlikely to be of much help even in the confines of a hotel room.
Hari was of the same opinion. ‘We seek this man for questioning,’ he said. ‘We require to find out only what he can tell us.’
‘I understand.’ Lin smiled. ‘But if he will not say anything, by shooting him in the knees the guns will help you to persuade him. You wish me to go with you?’
Hari shook his head. ‘Since Miss Cameron accompanies us today, I would be grateful if you would stay in the car with her. We will not be away for long.’
‘Then you should get ready.’ Lin reduced speed and began searching for a place to park. ‘If you will look ahead you can see the hotel I photograph for you. It is called the Golden Butterfly and is on the right-hand side just before the intersection.’
The street was located in a seedy area of the Geyland district; dirty by Singapore standards, run-down and filled predominantly with Arabs and Malays, some of whom were eyeing the Mercedes with suspicion.
While Lin manoeuvred the car into a slot between a grocery van and a red Toyota pick-up, Hari turned to speak to Heather.
‘Let us hope things go well,’ he said. ‘But if the man proves difficult and we must take him back to the boat with us, it is best if you come to sit here in the front seat while we are gone.’
‘You’re still going to kill him in the end though, aren’t you?’ She looked at him. ‘Tell me.’
‘We shall see what we shall see.’ Slipping the handgun into his pocket, Hari got out of the car and waited for Coburn to join him on the sidewalk. ‘It is a pity she does not like me,’ he said. ‘But for you I am glad she allows you to share her bed.’
‘Yeah.’ Coburn didn’t bother to enlighten him. ‘What if this guy’s not by himself?’
‘Then we have these little automatics with which to defend ourselves.’ Hari grinned. ‘You are nervous?’
‘No.’ Coburn knew he should be, but he wasn’t – the result of being in a position where for once he had the upper hand, he thought, a welcome change after the events of the last few weeks.
In Lin’s photograph, the Golden Butterfly had a less than upmarket look about it. Viewed at close quarters it was a lot worse, a three-or four-storey ramshackle building behind an unpainted wooden façade in the middle of which was a door covered with graffiti and so many cigarette burn marks that it had a blackened band across it.
‘We should ask ourselves why anybody would choose to stay in such a place.’ Hari paused with his hand on the doorknob. ‘Perhaps as a cautious man he believes he is safer here than in a nice hotel downtown.’
The lobby of the Golden Butterfly was thick with smoke and the rancid smell of cooking oil, and although the place was reasonably clean, the impression was one of advanced decay and shabbiness.
An elderly Indian behind the desk had seen them come in. Lifting his head from the newspaper he’d been reading he removed his spectacles and coughed. ‘You wish for one room or two?’ he enquired.
‘I come for another reason.’ Hari placed the photo of the truck driver on the desk and put down a $50 bill beside it. ‘You can tell me if this friend of mine stays here?’
The Indian put his glasses back on and peered at the photo. ‘It is difficult for me to be sure,’ he said. ‘We have many guests.’
Hari produced another $50 bill.
‘I remember now.’ The old man took both of the notes. ‘He pays in advance for two weeks. Room 23.’
Hari leaned over the desk to look for a switchboard. ‘You can inform my friend that he has visitors?’
‘It is not possible.’ The man coughed again. ‘The rooms do not have telephones and guests may use the house phone only and must pay in advance for all outgoing calls before they are made.’
‘Of course.’ Hari smiled. ‘Then if I may have the key we shall go to surprise him.’
This time the Indian was more reluctant, shuffling his feet and waiting to see if another handout was in the offing before he slid the key across the desk.
‘You are most kind.’ Hari put it in his pocket. ‘I shall return this to you when we leave.’
By now Coburn was having second thoughts, wondering whether they were underestimating the occupant of room 23, someone with the resources to hire gunmen wherever in the world he went, yet who seemed to believe that by checking into a nondescript hotel in Singapore he’d be impossible to track down.
Hari was more confident. He set off for the stairs, but stopped at the landing on the second floor. ‘You think this is too easy?’ he asked.
‘Maybe.’ Coburn looked along the corridor. It was poorly lit, and the smell of cooking had been replaced by the odour of urine and what he thought was bleach. ‘Let’s go and see.’
Room 23 was a quarter of the way along with nothing to distinguish it apart from its number and a plastic ‘do not disturb’ sign hanging from the doorknob.
Coburn was wary of the sign. An invitation to be careless, he wondered, or at the very least a warning?
Hari had taken his gun from his pocket and was gripping it in one hand and holding the room key in his other. ‘Please to knock,’ he whispered. ‘But because you sound too English, allow me to do the speaking.’
After checking his own gun to make sure it had a round in the chamber, Coburn stood aside and tapped twice on the door with his knuckles.
‘A gentleman wishes to talk with you on the telephone,’ Hari called. ‘He says you will know who it is.’
The response was immediate – not from room 23, but from the one across the corridor where a baby had started crying and a woman was shouting obscenities in what sounded like Malay.
For a few seconds Hari listened. Then he inserted the key in the lock, twisted it as quietly as he could and threw his whole body against the door.
It had been a wasted effort. The room was unoccupied. Worse still, it appeared to have been unoccupied for some time.
The rubbish bin contained no scraps of paper, the bed was neatly made, no clothes were hanging in the wardrobe, and in the bathroom the towels were dry and the soap was unused, still lying in its cellophane wrapper.
‘Fuck.’ Coburn sat down on the bed, too disheartened to know what else to say.
Hari looked more angry than disheartened. He went to kick the door shut and began pacing round the room. ‘I am sorry for this mistake I make,’ he said.
‘It’s not your fault. For all we know, the bastard could’ve only stayed one night. Maybe we can run him down somewhere else.’
‘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.
CHAPTER 9
HE WAS STILL struggling to come to terms with the truth and still staring into the fridge when Heather and Hari returned from the hall.
‘Ah.’ Hari came to see. ‘It is C4 plastic explosive?’
‘It’s Semtex. You can tell by the smell. C4’s a sort of off-white colour and it doesn’t smell much.’ Coburn shut the door. ‘I know what all this is about. I know the whole damn thing.’
‘You mean you know it is your friend the truck driver who has been here?’
‘Not just that. What I said – everything. I’ve got it all figured out.’
Heather didn’t believe him. ‘Nothing’s changed,’ she said, ‘well, nothing except for you throwing me across the room, and your fridge being booby-trapped.’
‘It’s not Armstrong.’ Coburn went to sit down. ‘It never has been. And it’s not the International Marine Bureau. I don’t think it’s O’Halloran either.’
She pulled up a chair for herself. ‘All right then,’ she said, ‘who is it?’
‘The US Government.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ She frowned. ‘How can it be? Why on earth would the US Government be paying someone to kill you?’
‘Because you and I are in their way. Because they’re shit scared that sooner or later one of us is going to work out the real reason why the crew of the Rybinsk died of radiation sickness, and why those kids were run over at the beach.’
She still had a frown on her face. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Yes, you do. Think for a minute. The Americans had no idea you had a job
at Fauzdarhat. They didn’t know you had a godfather who’d get in touch with the IMB, and they sure as hell weren’t expecting the IMB to send me to find you in Bangladesh.’
‘Are you saying all this started because of the Rybinsk?’
‘It all started because of Iraq. The US Administration knows they’ve dug themselves a hole they can’t get out of. They might be a superpower, but they haven’t got a friend left in the world. In Afghanistan they’re losing the battle against the Taliban. They’re worried sick about Iran. They’re making the Israeli–Palestinian problem worse, and they’re hated by every Muslim country you can think of. But the biggest problem they think they have isn’t any of those: it’s North Korea.’
The implications hadn’t passed Hari by. ‘You believe the American Government wishes to stop the covert development of nuclear weapons by North Korea?’
‘You can bet on it. The US doesn’t trust the Kim Jong regime, and they know damn well that if Pyongyang wants to carry on with its weapons programme, it’ll just be shifted underground where satellites can’t see it and no one’s going to find it.’
‘I see.’ Hari produced his lighter. ‘May I be permitted to smoke in your apartment?’
Coburn smiled. ‘Help yourself. There’s still beer in the fridge if you want one.’
‘For myself I prefer not to open the door. So you are suggesting that the Americans have decided to overcome their difficulties with North Korea in a clever way?’
Coburn nodded. ‘Washington knows the American public won’t stand for any more armed interventions, and the US Government won’t risk attacking North Korea by themselves because they can’t afford an international backlash that would damage their trade balance and maybe cut off their oil supplies. That’s why they had to come up with a better idea.’
Heather put her hands behind her head. ‘Which you’re saying is the Rybinsk.’
‘Not just the Rybinsk. This is a whole lot bigger than a ship arriving in Bangladesh with a sick crew. It’s one bloody great set-up on a world scale. It has been right from the beginning.’
The Rybinsk Deception Page 10