“Okay. Sounds good,” Rob replied brightly at the prospect of being close to Laura. “I’ll drop Cezar a text as well.”
Soon, the four of them were shuffling papers around the floor of the room, referring to their smartphones as they did to locate places on the maps and then place each sheet into some sort of geographical order.
An hour and a half later, they stood up and stretched their backs once more as they surveyed what lay in front of them.
“Darn it!” Nat exclaimed. “We have locations in Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and France. So now what?”
“We try to decipher what this means,” Laura retorted, equally bemused by the markings and locations.
“We look for common factors. What do we know about the locations identified in Britain, for example?” Rob asked. “Particularly, where the chemicals were found in the first instance.”
“Well, none of the locations particularly stand out,” Laura commented dubiously. “I can’t even say that I’ve heard of all of the places in Britain!”
“All but one of the locations are clustered around cities that are near the coast,”Cezar noted.
“True,” Nat mulled. “The place where Laura found the chemicals is close to Southampton, which is a university city and has a major port which is hub for cruise liners and cargo. But you can hardly say that Southampton is particularly large.”
“What does size matter?” Laura challenged, shocked. “A chemical attack at any of these locations would affect hundreds of thousands of people and cripple the national infrastructure that relies on those ports.”
“Hang-on!” exclaimed Rob. “That’s it! Laura, you’re great. They are targeting the national infrastructure: they’ve attacked the financial sector before, so what could they be targeting now?”
“Call me a sceptic,” Nat jumped in, “but on that basis, I fail to see what’s so important about Southampton!”
Laura scowled at Nat, but remained silent. I don’t get it either! Southampton is an important city, but hardly qualifies in the significant national infrastructure stakes!
The four of them stood around in silence, deep in thought as they pondered the various maps on the ground until Laura exclaimed “We’re being daft! It’s not Southampton!”
“Huh?!” the others responded.
“It’s Fawley! Look!” Laura stabbed a finger to a point on the map not far from Southampton. “Fawley Oil Refinery,” she explained. “And look, all the other locations are also not that far from oil refineries!” Laura proceeded to point to the other nine locations in turn.
“Taking those refineries out of action will have a major economic impact on each country and Europe as a whole,” Rob observed sombrely.
“Very true,” Nat agreed. “It’s a very clever plan. They won’t have to get through the on-site security; a chemical cloud will float across the site killing all staff. The refineries will then be closed for a very long time because replacing the numbers of people involved with the necessary skills to run a refinery will take an absolute age!”
Aghast, the four looked at each other for a second. “I need to let Steven know,” Laura said, breaking the silence. “Nat, Rob – let’s get back to the hotel. Cezar, can you drive us please? And please join us briefing Steven.”
“Absolutely. Would you like me to alert the relevant authorities in the other countries?” Cezar asked as they scooped up the maps and walked to the car.
“No,” Laura replied. “I would prefer Steven to do that. This needs to be a coordinated effort. If any country or refinery acts independently we risk alerting the terrorists that we know what they are attempting!”
“Understood,” Cezar said a little reluctantly. Being the messenger to break the news of such an horrendous plot would certainly raise his profile, but he understood the logic. And in any case, he thought, I’ve played an active part, so will get something out of this!
“And Rob,” Laura continued, “when we’re in the car, could you call your admin to get us home as quickly as possible.”
37
Emilio Arroz had not gone home, as he had suggested to Nikki – he didn’t really have a home. Instead, he travelled constantly, always looking over his shoulder in case Burak, the authorities, or one of his many other enemies was on to him. Burak had come far too close to killing him just a few months’ earlier. The disruption to his operations and the thwarting of the planned attack on London’s financial centre had been a huge setback for Kamal and himself. This time, he was determined it would be different. How they had been found – again – could be debated later.
Instead, Arroz had travelled the short distance from Arad, across the border into Hungary and on to the Kiskunsági national park. There he settled into a small, isolated rental house and started phone discussions with Kamal on what to do next – as well as talking to other sponsors of his for other activities that he was coordinating.
By mid-afternoon he was ready to call Nikki once again. With a deep sigh of relief and mounting satisfaction he picked-up his satellite phone and dialled her number.
“Hello?” the recognisable American accent answered.
“Nikki, hi.”
“Emilio!” her tone clearly expressing her delight for hearing his voice. “Have you got home?”
“Yes. Arrived a short time ago,” he lied. “Are you still able to contact everyone to arrange the mixing?”
“Absolutely, yes,” came the reply.
“Good. My client has asked that we proceed and mix our products ready for delivery to his customers.” Arroz was speaking in a very matter-of-fact manner, clearly tired. He needed to set things in motion before resting – something that was desperately needed given the fact that he had travelled all night and been awake for over thirty hours.
“I will give the instructions immediately. Given the time now and the shifts our people work, I don’t expect deliveries to start until late tomorrow, or the day after. I hope that is okay?” Nikki responded rather tentatively, not sure how the news would go down.
“Excellent! That’s perfect. Just as soon as possible.”
Phew! Nikki thought. Emilio appears to be under some serious stress!
“I suggested to my client that it would be a day later than that to give us a little contingency, but it would do me a lot of good if we exceed his expectations.”
Not a very subtle hint! she contemplated before replying. “I won’t disappoint you. Where shall we meet once the deliveries start?”
“I will drop you an email with details. I will be travelling again – something has come up,” he replied smoothly, easily recognising her fishing for information. “But first I would like you to stay for a short while just to make sure that everything is running as planned.”
Nikki sighed. She knew full well that Arroz was well aware she could monitor matters from anywhere, but he must clearly have other immediate plans – like travelling to where they were to meet. “Of course. That won’t be a problem.” Nikki also knew that it would be highly unlikely that she would be in any danger by staying on – she just had to be sure she had an exit strategy.
