by Mark Aitken
‘Name it,’ said Ford.
‘I don’t wear no fancy suit, but I’m the boss.’
‘Sweet,’ said the Aussie.
‘I mean it, buddy. You got a problem, it comes to me.’
Ford smiled. ‘Got it, boss.’
~ * ~
Harry Durville kept his cowboy boots on the desk for the first eight minutes of the meeting. Gallen focused on them after he lost track of the cussing that came from the Canadian’s mouth. There was an attractive executive woman called Florita Mendes, seated to the side of Durville’s desk, and where Gallen came from you didn’t cuss in front of the ladies.
‘I’m easy to dislike,’ said Durville, finally putting his feet on the carpet and moving to where Gallen stood, uncomfortable, beside the windows that looked north over the river from forty floors up. The oil billionaire stood about five-ten and had a bandy, lean-forward style of walking; he kept the power in his shoulders and had large hands. If Gallen had been in a bar he’d have assumed the fifty-nine-year-old was coming over to throw a punch.
‘See that, Gerry?’ Durville pointed out the window, ignoring Aaron’s attempts to conduct a proper meeting.
‘Sure,’ said Gallen. ‘Calgary. Had an Olympics here.’
‘No, not the fucking city,’ the oil man said, mouth smiling but eyes like a reptile. ‘The north, the great white north.’
‘Okay.’
‘That’s a licence to print fucking money, Gerry. That’s what that is.’
‘Sure,’ said Gallen.
‘That’s about twenty-five million square miles of cash, should anyone have the balls and the banking facilities to get in there, haul it out, process it and sell it south of the border.’
‘That’s great,’ said Gallen.
‘But in order to be in faster than the next fucker, I go to where I have to be; I walk the ground, I smell the air. You see?’
Gallen smelled whisky on Durville’s breath, saw a rheumy shade in the eye.
“Cos you see, Gerry, I’m not some business-school faggot sitting in meetings and being wheeled out for appearances on Bloomberg. I’m not a CEO, Gerry. I’m a managing director, okay? I’m a fucking owner, and there is a difference.’
Gallen had only a vague idea what Harry Durville was talking about.
‘But the more I get out and about, the more I upset the Ruskies, the Arabs and the fucking Texans. And the more I do that the more danger I place myself in, you see?’
‘Guess that’s what I’m doing here, Mr Durville,’ said Gallen.
‘This isn’t a nice business, Gerry, and those of us who succeed are not nice people,’ said Durville, biting a cigarette out of a soft pack and offering one to Gallen. ‘Aaron here hates me talking this up—hates me putting ideas out there—but it’s the truth, and you should hear it: I know seven Ruskies who’d have me assassinated right now if they could get away with it and it didn’t cost them too much money.’
‘Harry,’ interrupted Aaron, ‘let’s get back to the meeting.’
Durville lit up and offered the flame to Gallen’s cigarette. ‘Four years ago, I was closing a deal in Siberia, and my car was blown up.’
‘Ignore him,’ said Aaron, ushering Gallen towards the sofa at the other end of the office.
‘He should hear this,’ said Durville.
‘That was Russia and you were interested in the wrong woman.’ Aaron showed Gallen a seat. ‘This is now and this is Canada. We don’t do deals in strip clubs, we don’t assassinate business rivals.’
‘Holy shit, Gerry,’ said Durville, pulling a big crystal ashtray towards him as he sat on a sofa. ‘Those Russians can fucking party.’
‘Okay,’ said Aaron, handing Gallen a thin file. ‘Here’s how we work: you’re shown the week ahead every Monday morning, either handed to you or emailed.’
Gallen opened the file.
‘You brief me on any extraordinary measures, any security sweeps you want done, any advance searches, and then we go from there,’ Aaron continued. ‘You pick the weak spots, we do the work-up together.’
Gallen sucked on his smoke, put it in the ashtray as he read the first page of the file. It was a computer calendar printout showing a crowded week of travel, meetings, golf games, hockey seats and speeches. In one week Harry Durville was spending time in Calgary, Houston, Los Angeles and Mexico City. But it was the Friday-Sunday spread that caught Gallen’s attention.
‘What’s Kugaaruk?’ he said, looking from Aaron to Durville.
‘It’s way up north, in Nunavut,’ said Aaron.
‘That the tribal province?’ asked Gallen, envisaging sealskin kayaks and Eskimos with harpoons.
‘You know how I said the north’s a huge cash-pit?’ said Durville.
‘Sure,’ said Gallen.
‘Well, you want a springboard into that pit,’ said Durville, ‘you go to Kugaaruk and you build yourself the best rig.’
‘Rig?’
‘Behind you, Gerry,’ said Durville. ‘Check that out.’
Turning, Gallen saw a trestle table against the far wall of the office, dominated by a large model. It looked like a space station and had the word Ariadne painted in black along its curved, pale blue sides.
‘Looks like a UFO,’ said Gallen.
‘A UFO?’ said Durville, sucking on his smoke. ‘Shit, that’s Florita’s project, right there. That’s how we gonna make billions out of the great white north, Gerry. That UFO is the key to it all.’
Gallen looked at him to get a sense of what he was talking about, but Durville was laughing so hard that he’d brought on a coughing fit.
~ * ~
CHAPTER 13
Gallen sorted his notes as the Escalade motored south from Denver International Airport. The map showed several ways to get into downtown and Gallen wanted to avoid the route that meant too many fly-overs looking down on Durville’s silver SUV.
‘Take the next off ramp,’ said Gallen. ‘We’ll come in on Colfax, okay? ‘
Donny McCann eased the vehicle off the freeway into the city and stuck to the main streets. They were heading for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association on East Nichols Avenue, where Harry Durville was hosting a lunch or a meeting, Gallen had lost track. He’d lost track of just about everything to do with the billionaire except that the man was rarely off the phone and that his chief legal counsel—Florita Mendes—had a mind that trapped the smallest details and held them there for Harry to call upon.
From the back seat, Durville bumped one caller and was suddenly yelling into the phone. ‘George!’
There was a pause while the sound of a Texan voice snarled out of Durville’s handset and then Durville was laughing, yelling, ‘Fuck, yeah!’
As Durville rang off, still chuckling, Florita quietly reminded him that technically George still retained the right to be called ‘Mr President’.
Settling into the interminable red lights of East Colfax, Gallen keyed the mic dangling in front of his throat and asked Winter what was happening.
‘Nothing back here, boss,’ said Winter.
Peering into the Escalade’s side mirror, Gallen could see the blue Impala two cars behind the Escalade.
‘You look clear,’ said Winter.
Closing on the National Cattlemen’s headquarters, they passed a large, modern mirror-glass building that looked like a tribute or a statement. Looking up, Gallen saw the golden crown on the top of the building, over a blue cross.
Durville leaned forward to Gallen as they reached their destination block. ‘You take note, Gerry,’ he said, eyes like an old rail network map. ‘You wanna get certain things done in North America, you gotta go to the ranchers. Forget your lobbyists and PR people and crooked congressmen: you have lunch with the people who own most of the land. Understand?’
Gallen tapped the mic as Florita pulled Durville back for his briefing notes and a quick grooming, pulling a hair comb and then a clothes brush from her bag.
‘Kenny, you and Mike are on Durville,’ said Gallen into the
mic. ‘I’m covering the entry with Donny. Can do?’
‘Can do, boss,’ came the reply, and the Impala accelerated in front of the Escalade, taking a park near the front of the Cattlemen’s building. When the Escalade pulled up, Winter and Ford were waiting on the sidewalk, scoping the street.
Florita slipped Durville two Tic Tacs and they were gone, ushered into the building by Gallen’s men.
Dropping the windows to let in some of Denver’s spring warmth, McCann searched for an FM station. ‘That Durville can talk harder than my momma.’ He shook his head fondly. ‘Was that, like, George Bush on the phone? Holy shit.’
‘That’s Mr President to you, Donny.’
They watched the environment, looking for people or vehicles out of the pattern. Gallen’s gut churned and he craved a smoke. It was this kind of gig that defined his time in Afghanistan: hurrying up and waiting. Watching, recording, noting and then delivering back to the spooks at the head shed where, invariably, the questions indicated another agenda had been afoot the entire time.
His time in the field had made him wary—perhaps paranoid— about passive, clandestine engagements. They allowed too much power to the guy eating three squares a day, warm in his bed, surrounded by security. Having to sit still, waiting to observe others, now made him jumpy. It led to an explosion of activity when the soldiers were finally cut loose, and that was deadly. Gallen thought of the guys who’d lost hands because they picked up a laptop in a Taliban safe house or the soldiers with most of their fingers gone because they grabbed a cell phone that was left behind. He remembered what a humourless hard-ass his men thought he was, screaming at them to touch nothing, not allowing them to even use the light switches, open an oven or lift a telephone receiver for a dial tone. Captain Gallen’s marching orders: your job is eyes and ears; your job is not to go fucking with the things that mean losing your hands and face.
Most of the special forces units in northern Afghanistan had a pool of ordnance and IED experts to call upon, and the joke on Gallen was that as soon as they turned over a Taliban safe house or supply depot, the first thing he asked the comms guy to do was call in the OED, the bomb-disposal people.
‘We clear?’ said Gallen now, after they’d scanned the street for five minutes.
‘Sure, boss,’ said McCann.
Gallen spoke with Winter over the mic.
‘I can see nine men, cowboyed-up, sitting around a boardroom table,’ said Winter, who was waiting outside the meeting with Ford. ‘The food’s just arrived. Bunch of dudes dressed like chefs. Might escort them in.’
Gallen signed off. ‘Up for a sub and coffee?’ He looked around the Escalade.
‘Roast beef, mustard and pickles,’ said McCann.
‘Gimme thirty minutes,’ said Gallen, checking his SIG for load and safety before replacing it in the pouch holster over his belt buckle.
Retracing the route by two blocks, Gallen made a pass in front of the building with the crown on top, then passed back and moved into the foyer. He found the name ‘Dale Chevrolet Corporate’ listed on the eighth floor, and pushed the button for the elevator.
A woman with a cup of coffee and a brown paper sandwich bag rushed for the closing door and Gallen shoved his foot in the gap, made it open.
‘Thanks,’ she said, pushing a card into a slot and pushing ‘8’.
Gallen forced a smile. ‘My floor.’
‘They give you a pass?’ said the woman, a secretary type.
Gallen shrugged. ‘No. Bren Dale told me to come up to the eighth floor about midday, talk about the fleet lease buy-backs.’
‘Okay,’ said the woman. ‘I’ll fix you up.’
Gallen followed her to the reception desk on the eighth floor, an expensively decorated space with art on the walls and cut flowers in vases.
‘Mandy, this gentleman has an appointment with Bren. Could you help him, please?’
Gallen smiled his thanks as she left, then turned back to the reception woman. ‘David Bashifsky from Charter Stanley Fencing. I’ve been talking about bringing the fleet over from Ford to Chev. Bren told me to come up about midday.’
‘Charter Stanley Fencing,’ said the woman to herself, scrolling through a screen. ‘Nothing here, sir. It was David?’
‘Bashifsky, ma’am,’ said Gallen. ‘Mr Dale said if I have a fleet of more than fifty, I gotta be talking to corporate, gotta come downtown and we’ll do the best deal.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Bashifsky,’ she said. ‘Mr Dale is not in the building. Can I schedule another time, or have him call you?’
‘No thanks,’ said Gallen, getting a good look at the layout of the floor. ‘I’ll call him, see what’s going on.’
Turning slowly, Gallen heard a fire door slam shut and saw two office workers walk from an alcove into a corridor that didn’t route through the reception area.
Waiting for the elevator, he watched men in expensive suits confabbing in another hallway with mahogany doors and frosted-glass panelling: the executive suites.
He was the only one in the elevator, and pushing for ‘7’ he waited until the door opened again, when he made immediately for his right, towards the fire stairs. There was no receptionist—probably accounts or inventory management—but there was a stash of courier drops sitting on the carpet against the hessian-covered walls. Picking up a DHL bag, Gallen kept moving and found the fire door right where he expected it. Pausing in the stairwell, he listened for voices, hearing a few approach and then move past outside the door, his pulse hammering while he controlled his breathing.
Hitting speed dial on the Oasis-provided BlackBerry, Gallen patched to McCann, still sitting in the Escalade outside the Cattlemen’s HQ. ‘You said mustard. What kind?’
‘French’s,’ said McCann, surprised that someone would ask. ‘You know—hotdog mustard.’
Voices approached the eighth-floor fire door and Gallen moved up the stairs, arriving at the door as two young professionals burst through it, laughing about a Broncos player.
‘Thanks,’ said Gallen, smiling and showing the DHL bag as he slipped through the opened door.
The professionals barely saw him and left him standing in the alcove to the side of the reception area. It was one of the rules of Gallen’s world: dress in chinos and a polo shirt, and eyes will gloss over you. Carry a bag belonging to DHL, FedEx or UPS and doors will literally be opened.
Moving down the hallway he passed small offices and administration people, saw Dale Chevrolet mission statements on the wall, and walked through a kitchenette that seemed to link the admin section to the execs. Smiling at a secretary in the kitchen, Gallen kept going till he arrived at a corner section. One door had the name plate Ernest Dale—CEO, alongside another plate identifying the CFO.
Along the plush walkway, Gallen scanned the name plates and passed a meeting room before seeing what he was looking for: Brendan Dale’s office.
After looking up and down the walkway, Gallen turned the door knob and peered inside. Empty.
‘I help you?’ came a deep voice from what felt like his left shoulder. Jumping slightly, Gallen turned, ready to get out of Dodge. He knew that at the end of this corridor was another fire exit.
Coming face to face with a large African-American man, Gallen paused. He’d seen that face and heard that voice many times before, telling him to get down to a Dale showroom and do a deal with the King of Chev.
‘I know you?’ said Ern Dale, not moving out of the way.
‘Don’t think so,’ said Gallen. ‘I was looking for Bren—’
Before Gallen could finish, Ern Dale had taken the DHL satchel in his bear-like paw and was looking at the addressee.
‘For Missy D’Angelo,’ he said, levelling a stare. ‘Downstairs, stock management.’
Taking the satchel back, Gallen tried to avert his eyes and leave but the big man blocked his way.
‘Gallen,’ said Ern, clicking his fingers. ‘Captain Gallen. You’re in a photo of Bren’s, from that shit in Iraq.’
‘Afghanistan—’ started Gallen, but it was too late.
Ern Dale’s face creased with a big salesman’s smile, doing what he did for the TV screen on most nights and all Sunday afternoon during the football. ‘Well, well. Got vets delivering the mail. Wanna talk about it?’
They sat in Ern Dale’s enormous office, Gallen wondering how he’d talked himself into hunting Bren Dale. What was he after? An explanation?
‘You wanted Bren, huh?’ said Ern, leaning back in a CEO chair, hands clasped over a wide but not fat belly. Gallen had him as six-four, closing on three hundred pounds.
