At Risk

60

Again,” said Faraj.

“When we get to the pub I ask to leave my coat in the car. I leave the bag, too-under the coat-in case they’re running bag checks on the pub door. I persuade him to stay at the pub for as long as possible, preferably till closing time, and then take me back to the house. When it’s time to leave the pub, I set the timer to one hour, turning the red button all the way to the right. In the car I drop some coins, and squeeze round to the back seat to retrieve them. While I’m down there, I stuff the backpack under the passenger seat. When we get back to his house, I stay for ten minutes maximum, perhaps arranging to meet him tomorrow, and then I leave. I walk back around the cricket ground by the road, and knock six times on the door to this pavilion. We then have an estimated thirty-five minutes to get away.”

“Good. Remember that he must not take the car out of the garage once he has returned there. That’s why I want you to return as late as possible. If there seems to be any possibility of him or any other member of the family taking the car out again, you must prevent him. Either steal his car keys or disable the car. If you cannot do these things, then take the backpack into the house with you and hide the bomb somewhere there.”

“Got it.”

“Good. Put the backpack on.”

They had prepared this earlier, when there was still light. He had wired up the C4 device-a fairly straightforward job, necessitating a single small screwdriver and pliers-and together with its digital timer and electronic detonator this was now enclosed in an aluminium casing. At one end of the casing was the red timer-activator button, and protruding from the other a stubby inch-long aerial. If necessary, the timer could be over-ridden and the device remotely detonated by a matchbox-sized transmitter which was zipped into the inside breast pocket of Faraj’s mountain jacket. The maximum range for remote detonation was four hundred yards, however, and it went without saying that if either of them was that close when the device went off, things would have gone badly wrong.

Rolling up the casing in the muddy jeans she had taken off that morning, Jean had tucked it at the bottom of the backpack. It had been decided that there was no point in trying to disguise the device. It was light, less than two pounds in weight, but the volume of explosive was too great to fit inside a camera or radio or anything else that she was likely to be carrying. Besides, there was no reason to suppose that she was going to be searched. She had stuffed a dirty T-shirt and her make-up bag on top of the jeans, and zipped up. Now she folded her waterproof jacket through the backpack’s strap, so that it hung in front of her.

He squinted at her shadowy form. “Are you ready to do this thing, Asimat?”

“I’m ready,” she said calmly.

He took her hand. “We will succeed, and we will escape. At the hour of vengeance we will be miles away.”

She smiled. An impossible calm seemed to have settled over her. “I know that,” she said.

“And I know that what you are doing is not easy. That talking to this young man will not be easy. You must be strong.”

“I am strong, Faraj.”

He nodded, holding on to her hand in the darkness. Outside, the wind scoured the pavilion and the dark, wet trees.

“It’s time,” he said.