All the Queen's Men by Linda Howard Read Free Book Online Page A

and traffic would grind to a standstill.
    The explosive could have been disguised as something else and slipped through the machines in Atlanta. The system failed occasionally; nothing was foolproof. There should still, however, have been evidence of the detonator. They should have found a radio, or a mercury switch, or a simple timer-anything by which the explosion could be triggered. The detonator was actually how most bombs were spotted, because they were more easily detected when scanned.
    John rubbed his lower lip and tossed the report onto Frank's desk. He had been most interested in the chemical analysis. The explosive found had some components in common with plastique, but there were some anomalies. "I'm thinking R.D.X." R.D.X. was cyclonite, or composition C-l. By itself it was too sensitive to handle, so it was usually mixed with a plasticiser, which would give it some of the same chemical elements as plastique. R.D.X. could be molded into any shape including shoelaces.
    Frank looked up. "How? You know how luggage and packages are thrown around; an unstable explosive would have detonated on the ground."
    "But what if it wasn't originally unstable? What if the compound deteriorates, and sets off a chemical reaction that causes it to explode? If you know the rate of deterioration, the explosion could easily be timed."
    "Something that starts out as stable as plastique, but deteriorates and becomes its own detonator? Son of a bitch." Frank closed his eyes.
    "There's always the chance some lone sociopath in a lab somewhere cooked this up, but what I'm hearing is that it came out of a top-secret lab in Europe."
    "IRA?"
    "I'm sure they would be standing in line to buy, but I haven't picked up any hints that they bankrolled the development."
    "Who, then?"
    "Take your pick; we aren't short on candidates." Terrorist groups proliferated all over the world. There were at least twenty-five hundred known organizations; some came and went, others had thousands of members and had been around for decades.
    "And they'll all have this new stuff."
    "Only if they have the money to buy it." The terrorist organizations might cooperate with one another, but it wasn't one big happy brotherhood. A new explosive would be a big moneymaker, closely controlled for as long as possible so there would be only one producer of it. Eventually, as happened to all new technology, everyone would have it; by then the means of detecting it would also have been developed. It was like a chess game, with moves and countermoves.
    "If it's in Europe, and big money is behind it, then Louis Ronsard is our man," John said.
    That in itself was a large problem. Ronsard was a shadowy Frenchman who gave his allegiance to no one group; he was the conduit, however, for many, and he had made an enormous fortune providing what was needed. He probably wasn't behind the development of the explosive, but he would be the logical person to approach as a middle man, one to handle payments and shipments-for a fee, of course.
    Ronsard could be picked up, or eliminated; he wasn't in hiding. But his security was extremely tight, making a capture far more difficult than an elimination. Even if he were captured, John doubted he would give up any useful information. Sophisticated interrogation techniques could be countered by intensive training and mind control. Added to the problem of Ronsard was that he had powerful friends in the French government. He had been left alone, for all of the above reasons, but also because he was neither the source nor the user of all the nasty things he provided. He was the conduit, the controller, the valve. Eliminate him and another conduit would take his place.
    Finding the source was the key, but John also had to discover to whom other shipments had already been delivered. To do that, he had to get to Ronsard.
    Chapter Five
    John Medina never stayed in the same place twice when he came to D.C. He had no home, literally. A home base gave anyone