‘I apologise. But, like I said, I find business relationships work best if there’s an element of trust.’
‘So why are you here?’
‘To demonstrate that I am not a threat to you. We can have a pleasant, professional communication in your home and you’ll see that I am a man to be trusted. I show the police due courtesy and respect.’
‘What about Kenny?’
‘It’s Mr Armstrong who has a problem with me.’
Irvine wanted to hear what he had to say, but still found it difficult to come to terms with the notion of letting the man in her house at this time of night.
‘I saw some things today I’d prefer not to have ever seen. What people can do to one another.’
Parker pursed his lips.
‘I saw that on the news. You were on TV.’
‘I’ve got used to that.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ he said finally.
‘I know that.’
‘That’s not who I am.’
‘I can’t comment on who you are.’
Parker sighed. ‘Let me offer this,’ he said. ‘If you allow me to come in and we have a conversation, we can put that in the favour bank in your credit. I mean, I have information that will be of interest to you as regards Russell’s employer, so ordinarily that would put you in my debt.’
Irvine raised an eyebrow. She knew that having contacts in the criminal world was all part of the game, but this guy was too slick for his own good. She hesitated and stepped back to allow Parker to come in.
‘You’ve got a nice home,’ he said as he sat on the couch in her living room.
She got the impression that he meant it.
‘I understand that these relationships can be beneficial,’ Irvine said. ‘But I want to be clear that next time we arrange a meeting in advance, okay?’
Parker nodded.
‘And any future meetings will not be at my home. In fact, I don’t want you anywhere near here again.’
He paused to look at her and nodded.
‘What’s this about, Mr Parker?’
‘You want to get right to it?’
Irvine nodded.
‘Well, I asked around like I said I would. Regarding Russell Hall’s current employment status.’
‘Uh-huh. And?’
‘I heard a name mentioned in passing.’
‘You heard it, or you knew it already but kept it to yourself until now?’
‘I thought that we agreed to be courteous?’
She said nothing, not prepared to apologise to him.
‘Do you want the name?’
‘Yes.’
‘Butler.’
‘That’s it?’ she asked. ‘No first name?’
Parker shook his head.
‘Do you know any more than that? His background or where I can find him?’
‘There’s a limit to how much I can say. I mean, you understand that, don’t you?’
‘The favour bank has strict withdrawal limits, obviously.’
Parker stood and laughed.
‘That’s a good way of putting it, yes.’ He turned and went to the door. ‘Don’t get up,’ he told her.
Irvine hadn’t moved.
‘Oh,’ Parker said, turning to her as he opened the door to the hall. ‘I think that this Butler may have worked with Johnson before. That both of them were soldiers or something in a past life.’
Irvine stared after him as he closed the door softly.
13
‘It’s been a while, Jack,’ Seth Raines told the man on the other end of the telephone line when his call was answered.
Jack Butler grunted.
‘How are things over there? Business is good?’
‘Uh …’
‘Are you drunk?’
‘No, I’m not drunk. I’m tired. It’s been a rough few days and it’s nearly three in the morning here.’
Raines looked at his watch which showed that it wasn’t quite eight at night. He always forgot about the size of the time difference.
‘Sorry.’
‘Never mind. What do you want?’
‘We’re getting out of the business.’
Raines felt like it would be best to tell Butler straight up. No preamble. He knew that Butler would not take it well. Not after Raines had ordered Butler to kill Johnson.
‘What?’ Butler asked, sounding more confused than angry.
‘We got an offer we couldn’t refuse from the Mexicans. We’re cashing out.’
‘You mean you got scared of them. The competition. They threatened you and you chickened out.’
Raines couldn’t tell if Butler was joking or not.
‘You know me better than that.’
Butler grunted again; Raines was unsure if it was anger, derision or something in between.
Raines didn’t know Butler well. Had trusted Andy Johnson’s recommendation. Johnson had been the one to float the idea that grew into the business conducted out at the compound and in the UK. Johnson had spent all the money he earned after he got out of the army – as a private security consultant in Iraq and Afghanistan – and was getting desperate for cash. Butler had worked with Johnson in Afghanistan and had contacts in the drug trade there – which he had revealed to Johnson on one particularly drunken night.
Johnson had stayed in touch with Raines. He heard about Matt Horn’s problems from Raines. Knew that he, too, was desperate for money.
For Raines it was a matter of the end justifying the means. Getting enough money together to get Horn out of the hospital and finding him a pair of artificial legs he could at least walk on. The ones he’d been given at the hospital rubbed his skin so badly that he’d been bedridden with infected blisters for weeks. And then the real infection had set in – almost killing him.
But Raines had grown to believe now that he had much more in common with Butler than with either Johnson or Matt Horn: that this line of work fed the need they both had to express themselves through violence.
In quieter moments, Raines wondered if he had always been a man who lived for violence and the adrenalin rush of it. And whether the war, the events that day after they left the poppy field and the indignities suffered by Matt at the hands of his so-called country had simply unleashed the real Seth Raines, free from the restrictions that society sought to impose.
‘Where do I get my gear now if you’re getting out – from the Mexicans?’
‘That’s up to you.’
‘You’re abandoning me, is that it?’
‘Hardly. You’ll work something out.’
‘Couldn’t be any worse than the fucking mess Horn has made of it,’ Butler snorted. ‘Your little buddy with the chemistry degree who was
supposed to run the manufacturing end of things. And look at us now. See how that turned out.’
‘You’ve had more ODs too?’
‘Yeah. And I had to cover my tracks.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. I had to leave some cold ones behind and the cops are sniffing around.’
Raines pulled at the collar of his shirt. It felt like things were close to being out of control. First Johnson was killed for skimming profits, then Stark and now Butler was losing it. They were all at risk.
‘I worry about Matt,’ he told Butler.
‘He never did have the stomach for it. Not after he was out and hobbling around on his new legs.’
‘We had an undercover FBI agent trying to infiltrate us.’
‘What?’ Butler shouted. ‘Because of Matt?’
‘No. I mean, I don’t think so. I don’t know.’
‘So why are you worried about him? You’re not making any sense.’
‘He’s depressed. About the overdoses we had here. I don’t think he can take it any more.’
‘So do what I did.’
Raines wasn’t sure what he meant and said so.
‘Take him out. It’s the only way you can be sure he won’t turn you in.’
The thought had passed through Raines’s mind more than once. But it seemed like such a waste. This whole thing got started to get Matt out of the hospital. To get him well. It was only after that, when the operation grew, that they hatched the notion of doing something more with it.
‘Look,’ Butler said. ‘Fuck him. And fuck the FBI. You do what I did. You take out anyone who is a threat. A weak link. Don’t even think twice about it. Doesn’t matter if they are civilians or if they wear a badge. There’s only two types of people: soldiers and all the rest. And the rest of them don’t matter.’
‘What about you?’
‘Don’t worry about me. You do what you have to and I’ll do the same. I can take care of myself.’
‘Okay. We won’t speak again.’
‘It’s been … interesting.’
Raines drove to Matt Horn’s house and sat in the car parked along the street. It was still light outside. His gun was in a holster under the front passenger seat. He leaned down and grabbed it, taking the gun out and sitting it on his lap. Closed his eyes. Saw it all play out.
Matt in the hospital screaming. Wanting to know why him.
The overbearing arrogance and lack of interest among the hospital bureaucrats: only interested in how much money they could make from the treatment.
Matt fading away as the multiple infections took hold and ravaged his body.
Him lashing out in the hospital waiting area, trashing the place.
The condescending replies to his letters.
Drinking himself into a stupor and making the threats.
Then, at the bottom of his despair, the thought of exploiting the contacts Johnson and Butler had made back in Afghanistan. Those men seemed like magnets for others soaked in violence and blood.
Raines tried to remember how he justified what he’d done in his own mind. He couldn’t have contemplated such a thing before the war. Before Matt. Wondered if his mind had snapped. Maybe it was Matt reminding him of his own son and the pain and suffering he endured before the leukaemia finally took him far too young.
He wondered if he’d ever been truly sane since his son had died. Thought that probably he had not.
Raines’s attention was drawn to a taxi pulling up outside Horn’s house. The front door of the house opened and Horn walked stiffly out to the taxi and climbed awkwardly into the back seat.
‘Where are you going, Matt?’ Raines said aloud.
Raines started his car and followed the taxi.
14
‘Cooper Grange,’ Danny Collins said for the third time in as many minutes. ‘Sounds like a cowboy.’
He turned in the passenger seat of the car being driven by Jake Hunter and looked at Logan and Cahill in the back seat.
‘Does he wear a Stetson?’
‘Not last time I looked,’ Logan told him.
They had called Webb at the FBI field office and arranged to meet him and Grange there. Webb told them to park on the street outside the building and Grange would meet them to take them to the office on the top floor. Hunter and Collins had not said much about their investigation to Webb on the phone except that there was a link to a group of ex-soldiers with a possible connection to a Mexican drug cartel. That was enough for Webb.
Grange was standing on the pavement and walked to the car as Hunter pulled up at the kerb. His suit still looked immaculate after what had obviously been a long day for him, judging by the smudges of dark skin under his eyes.
Logan and Cahill hung back while Hunter and Collins introduced themselves and shook hands with Grange. Grange gave Cahill a look but said nothing, ushering the four of them forward and into the building lobby where they walked to the bank of elevators.
Webb was waiting for them in the conference room next to his office at the end of the hall. His jacket was draped over a chair and he had loosened his tie and his shirt cuffs. Hunter introduced himself and Collins.
‘We should get down to business,’ Webb said as he sat.
Hunter and Collins took seats side by side.
‘What about these two?’ Grange said, looking at Logan and Cahill. ‘They can’t be here for this.’
Webb looked from Grange to Hunter.
‘What do you think, Detective?’
Hunter turned in his seat to look at them.
‘It’s fine with me if they stay. I mean, they’re the ones who put us together.’
‘By withholding information,’ Grange said.
‘You want to lock them up in your basement?’ Collins asked.
‘Danny …’ Hunter frowned at his partner.
Grange still wasn’t happy.
‘He’s got clearance,’ he said, jabbing a finger at Cahill. ‘But the lawyer doesn’t. He shouldn’t be here.’
‘The lawyer stays,’ Cahill said.
‘No,’ Logan answered. ‘I don’t want to get in the way of this happening. Show me where I can get a drink and something to eat and I’ll wait for you guys.’
Cahill opened his mouth to protest but Logan cut him off.
‘We’re all supposed to be on the same side,’ Logan said.
‘Coop,’ Webb said to Grange. ‘The least you can do for the man is get him comfortable. It might be a long night.’
Grange huffed out a breath and opened the door, waiting for Logan to step out into the hall. From there, he led Logan back to the reception area and through a secure door behind it into an open-plan office area. Logan figured that this was where the regular agents went about their ordinary business. The place was largely empty apart from a female agent at a desk by a window and the two Hispanic agents who had picked them up at the airport – Martinez and Ruiz. They sat at desks facing one another and looked over as Grange came in.
‘Look after this one,’ Grange told them. ‘Get him a coffee or something.’
He turned and walked back out the same door without waiting for an acknowledgement. Logan stared at the two agents who looked at one another. Finally, Ruiz got up and came over to where Logan stood.
‘So, is it coffee? Or do you English types like tea?’
‘I’m not English.’
Ruiz frowned.
‘Scotland’s a different country.’
‘Whatever. What’s it to be?’
‘Coffee is fine.’
Grange came back into the conference room, walked around to the far side of the table and sat next to Webb. He kept his suit jacket on. Hunter, Collins and Cahill were on the other side of the table.
‘I don’t buy into any of that inter-agency competition,’ Webb started. ‘We’re all chasing the same goal so why don’t I explain where I’m coming from.’
‘Go ahead.’ Hunter nodded.
Webb placed his hand on a file that sat on the table in front of him and slid it across to Hunter.
‘Seth Raines came on to our radar maybe a year ago,’ Webb said, pointing at the file which Hunter opened.