Carver - By Tom Cain Page 0,34

ingredients. One was designed to burn as an extremely high-energy fuel. The other was the explosive. The work was delicate. A single spark would be enough to blow the barn and everyone in it sky-high. So the three women had been working in an atmosphere of fierce, near-silent concentration, an atmosphere that was shattered as one of the trio looked up at Gryffud, grinned, and said, ‘Hey, baby, have you been talking about how to spend my money?’

Her name was Uschi Kremer. The heiress to a Swiss industrialist’s vast fortune, she was both the source of the group’s funds and the motivating force that had taken them from conventional acts of protest to the brink of violent action. Her gentle but relentless pressure had steered Gryffud away from his traditional, harmless acts of attention-seeking towards something far more extreme. And when the final decision to act had been made, she had even managed to persuade him that it had all been his idea. Her behaviour, though, was casual to the point of in difference. This morning, for example, she had appeared twenty-four hours after everyone else, without apology for her late arrival, secure in the knowledge that they literally could not afford to do without her.

Gryffud forced a smile. ‘Have no fear, Uschi, we won’t waste a penny of your cash.’

‘I don’t care if you do.’ She laughed. ‘It was all made by thieves and bastards anyway!’

‘If you don’t give it one, I fucking will,’ Smethurst muttered beneath his breath.

Gryffud gave a grunt of disapproval. There was no denying Kremer was as hot as the fiery red hair that was now all but hidden by her simple cotton scarf. There wasn’t a scrap of make-up on her face, and she was dressed in a simple khaki T-shirt and jeans. But the way those cheap clothes clung to every one of her body’s long, slender curves was as revealing as the most elegantly cut designer gown. Her freckled skin glowed with a tan acquired on a short break in the Mediterranean. ‘I took the family jet,’ Uschi had teased, knowing how annoyed Gryffud would be. ‘But don’t worry. I bought a few more thousand hectares of jungle to make up for it.’

Every man on the farm was affected by her presence at a primal, pheremonal level. They worked that bit harder, spoke more assertively and laughed more loudly in her presence. The other two women knew, and resented it. The result was an atmosphere of sexual tension that was dangerously volatile: a potentially fatal distraction from their mission.

‘Keep up the good work,’ Gryffud said distractedly, and went off with Smethurst to the tractor shed, fifty metres away across the farmyard, where the four other male group-members were at work.

The shed had been split into three discrete zones. In one a collection of thirty-two high-pressure gas-cylinders had been lined up in two groups. Fourteen of the cylinders were the size of large domestic calor-gas tanks: roughly 120 cm tall with a 36 cm diameter. The other eighteen were small enough to fit inside them. One of the men was working with a plasma torch, cutting off both ends of the larger cylinders so as to transform them into open tubes. The smaller cylinders merely lost their bases.

At the next workstation two group-members were constructing a crude steel framework, split into twelve compartments – four long by three wide – like an oversized wine rack. Each compartment was big enough to take one of the large cylinders, with a little room to spare. The whole structure was about as big as a coffin, but twice as deep.

The fourth member of the group was perched on the roof of a white Toyota Hiace camper van that looked far older than its X-registration plates suggested. He, too, had a plasma torch, and was using it to cut a large rectangular hole in the vehicle’s roof. The concrete floor behind the van was piled with the cupboards, bed, cooking gear and chemical toilet that had been stripped from its now-empty interior. Only the old window curtains remained, discreetly drawn to prevent anyone looking in.

Every single one of the Vehicle Identification Number stickers and tags scattered about the camper van had been located and either removed or rendered illegible. The plates belonged to a completely different car that had been bought at auction two weeks earlier, disposed of, and then reported stolen.

‘This is another old PIRA trick,’ said Smethurst, looking at the scene before him. ‘The way