by Mark Aitken
Mulligan nodded at the Russian. ‘Viktor has a phone. Tell him a number and then call your men back. And do it nice, Gerry, like you mean it.’
‘Call them back to be killed?’ said Gallen, shaking his head. ‘You’re confused, Paul. No man of mine ever took a bullet for me, and I’m not going out with that said about me.’
‘Make that two of us,’ said Winter.
Mulligan’s shoulders sagged and he looked out the window. ‘Does everything have to be so honourable with you people?’
‘How it works,’ said Gallen. ‘How else you gonna get men to go out there, get blown up by Towelie while people like you drink Scotch in the officers’ mess?’
Mulligan fixed him with a sarcastic look. ‘Okay, Captain. Your boys get to live. Now give Viktor the fucking number.’
Gallen watched the Russian walk towards him, cell phone in hand. His mind spun to the recesses of his memory and he was ninety per cent sure he had the number right, having only looked at it for two seconds as he’d pocketed the card.
Looking up, he started the number with 4-1-6 and rattled off the rest, trying to make it sound like a number he’d phoned many times.
Viktor kneeled beside him and put the phone against Gallen’s ear. The ring tone was agonising and cold sweat seeped out from beneath his short fringe.
The number connected: a woman called Mae, in the supermarket in Dundalk.
‘You’re all thumbs, Viktor,’ said Gallen, avoiding Winter’s eye. ‘Get it right this time.’
Viktor looked to his boss, and Mulligan nodded.
Gallen tried the same number with the last two digits swapped. His throat was sandpaper dry as he felt Mulligan’s eyes boring into him. This was it—if he couldn’t produce Florita, they’d be tortured and fed to the pigs.
The ring tone droned and after four rings it was answered. ‘Yep,’ came the man’s voice.
‘Arkie. Gallen here. You got a minute?’
Gallen looked into Mulligan’s eyes, trying to ignore the confused pause on the end of the line as Viktor leaned closer to the handset. ‘Yeah, so Arkie, turns out I sent you away too quick—I need you after all, and I need the girl back here too.’
Arkie’s silence was profound, at least giving Viktor nothing to go on.
‘I need you here in half an hour, something’s come up.’
Fast Arabic flowed on the other end of the line—Arkie issuing orders.
‘Yeah, same place we did the snatch,’ said Gallen, nodding at Mulligan. ‘Yeah, yeah—I know, buddy. But there’s later flights to LA, and you’re getting paid, last I heard.’
‘You okay, Mr Gallen?’ came the Lebanese accent down the line.
‘What the fuck’s it doin’ in the truck?’ said Gallen, shrugging for Mulligan’s benefit. ‘Whole generations of people got by without a GPS, know that, Arkie?’
Gallen rolled his eyes. ‘If you’re on Highway 6, do a U-turn, come back south through Mount Forest, go left at the lights and down eighty-nine, remember?’
Gallen leaned away from Viktor, who was getting too close. ‘Yep, that’s it buddy—left at twenty-two, right at twelve, fast as you can.’ He nodded at Viktor, who brought the phone up to his own ear while Gallen gulped at a dry throat. Turning to Mulligan, Viktor nodded— the call had seemed legit.
‘Arkie left his GPS in the truck,’ said Gallen, shaking his head at Winter.
‘City boy,’ said the Canadian. ‘Couldn’t find his pecker in his shorts.’
~ * ~
Gallen’s leg wound had stopped bleeding by the time Mulligan walked into the kitchen and ostentatiously looked at his watch.
‘You told me an hour, Gerry,’ he said. ‘We had a deal.’
‘I said an hour at best,’ said Gallen. ‘What’s your end in this anyway? ‘
‘Just business,’ said Mulligan, playing with his BlackBerry.
‘You working for the Russians?’
‘Just looking after an investment interest, Gerry. Just like you were at Oasis.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Gallen.
Mulligan smiled. ‘A certain Russian family has a big investment in Florita Mendes. They can’t have her squealing to the spooks in DC.’
‘That was it? You were minding Florita?’
‘Until that drunken idiot Durville kicked me out—yeah.’
‘Who were you working for? Reggie?’ said Gallen, trying to put it together.
‘No.’ Mulligan shared a laugh with Viktor. ‘No, Gerry. The man who pulls Reggie’s strings. The man who runs ninety per cent of the liquor imports into Russia—one of the world’s biggest oil barons.’
Gallen shook his head but Mulligan stared at him with that inane smile. ‘Shit,’ said Gallen. ‘Ivan Bashoff?’ He couldn’t help it, he started laughing. ‘Holy shit, Paul. The crown prince of Pentagon spooks is working for a Russian gangster?’
‘Call him what you like,’ said Mulligan, not liking the professional taunt. ‘He’s going to control the world’s largest oil and gas field within the year.’
‘And he makes the world’s smallest nuclear power plant, is that it, Paul?’
Mulligan gave Gallen a quick look. ‘You’re one of those soldiers who think too much, Gerry. Coulda had a better war without that to carry round.’
‘But I carried it.’
‘Like a load in your shorts,’ said Mulligan, making Viktor snort with laughter.
‘I love all the spooky shit, Paul,’ said Gallen, wondering if the phone call had worked. ‘Makes you sound important. But chasing down Ern Dale’s case? Shit, you just wanted that twenty-eight million.’
Mulligan’s face changed, he cleared his throat. ‘I never had a problem with Ern Dale, and believe me when I say that I’d never cross the hard-ons he worked with in the Pentagon—it’s not in my interests to eat their lunch. You want that twenty-eight, you go ask a certain hockey defenceman from Saskatchewan. What I hear.’
Gallen turned to Winter, who didn’t take his eyes off Mulligan.
‘Tell him the truth, Mulligan,’ said Winter.
Mulligan sniggered and reached for his cigarettes. ‘You’re hardly in a position to—’
‘I said tell him, Mulligan.’ Winter’s voice was low and mean, like a blizzard howling against the barn boards. The change in tone made Mulligan gulp and Viktor shifted his body weight.
For three seconds the atmosphere was electric and Gallen had an insight into why Kenny Winter had been such a brutal player on the ice, and such a notorious enforcer in Afghanistan. He exuded a power beyond the physical.
‘I never lied to you, boss,’ said Winter, finally taking his murderous eyes off Mulligan.
‘About what?’ said Gallen. ‘What is this?’
Mulligan lit a smoke. ‘It’s about a greedy assassin who grabbed twenty-eight million dollars and ran. Didn’t think to share with his superiors.’
Winter shook his head, kept his eyes on Gallen. ‘I was doing a job. Certain people in the Pentagon think I took the money.’
‘What was the job?’ said Gallen.
‘A Taliban conduit in Pakistan—a trucking dude.’
‘Trucking?’ said Gallen, old cogs starting to turn.
‘The spooks had him turned, promised to bring him out.’
‘Yeah?’ said Gallen.
‘I was supposed to end it for him,’ said Winter. ‘It was a CIA double-cross—they didn’t want his story going to the New York Times. But at the last minute the story changed and the head shed says, He’s got twenty-eight million stashed somewhere—let’s snatch him, torture the money out of him.’
‘That never happened,’ spat Mulligan. ‘You soldiers gossip too much.’
Gallen ignored him. ‘What happened?’
‘I wasn’t equipped for a snatch, so they sent a Force Recon unit to escort him out of the Taliban zone. But they couldn’t steal the money because he was protected by someone in Washington, who’d already been promised a cut of the twenty-eight.’
‘His nam
e was Al Meni,’ said Gallen softly. ‘A trucking millionaire and an al-Qaeda conduit to the Taliban.’
‘His name was Youssef Al Meni,’ said Winter, nodding slowly.
‘He had a much younger wife and three children,’ said Gallen. He had never spoken of the night.
‘They weren’t to be touched—only Youssef,’ said Winter.
‘They rode with me in the back of a HiAce van, locals driving,’ said Gallen. ‘I promised them they were safe.’
‘They had a safe route into the Marjah compound,’ said Winter.
‘But the route was changed during the op,’ said Gallen. ‘We were ambushed. One of my guys—young kid fresh out of Pendleton— was killed before he could lift his rifle. Joe Nyles lost his leg to a homemade grenade. When the shooting was over, the wife was dead, kids in shock and Al Meni gone.’
They looked into one another’s eyes, Gallen’s nostrils flaring with anger. Was it possible? Was that terrible night engineered by a bunch of spooks for the sake of money?
‘You?’ said Winter, eyes narrowing. ‘It was your unit?’
‘Sure,’ said Gallen. ‘So you’re telling me it was our guys pulled that shit? Ern Dale was involved?’
Mulligan sighed. ‘Can you girls stop this for three seconds and tell me where Florita is?’
Gallen barely heard him. ‘Who made the call, Kenny?’
‘Code name Bellbird—never met him but apparently he called everyone Ace.’
‘Okay, okay,’ said Mulligan, holding his hands down for calm. ‘Gerry knows the answers to this. I called it, okay? End of the Vincent Price mystery hour.’
‘You fucker, Mulligan,’ said Gallen, straining at the duct tape. ‘You don’t pull that crap on the US Marine Corps.’
‘I was executing an order, Gerry,’ said Mulligan, looking at his watch. ‘You think the Ghan was all about you? Think it’s all about Silver Stars and homecomings in Shitsville, Wyoming?’
‘It was about duty,’ yelled Gallen, tears welling up from God knew where. ‘What is it about you pen-pushers that you don’t get that?’
‘Shit, Gerry, you’re breaking my heart,’ said Mulligan. ‘Point is, here we are talking about twenty-eight million dollars, and I don’t have it. Ern Dale’s people thought Kenny had it, and I have no reason to doubt that.’
‘That’s bullshit, Mulligan,’ said Winter.
‘Really?’ said Mulligan. ‘Only other guy close enough was Gerry.’
They looked at each other, Gallen heaving with anger.
‘You’re wrong, Paul,’ said Gallen, as he calmed down.
‘About you having the money?’
‘No,’ said Gallen. ‘The point isn’t money—the point is duty.’
‘Can’t live on duty,’ said Mulligan.
‘Tell that to a soldier who’s seen action,’ said Gallen, ‘and he’ll know you were never there.’
The first shot cracked the window with a small tinkle and hit Viktor in the forehead. As the big man collapsed on the floor, Mulligan stood and flattened himself against the wall, pulling a black 9mm pistol from a hip holster.
Gallen struggled with the ties around his wrists as automatic gunfire sounded around the farmhouse. Windows smashed, a man yelled out in pain and voices barked at one another. Lebanese voices. Gallen’s call had worked—Arkie’s crew had arrived.
Mulligan took a quick look through the shattered window and swore. ‘On your feet, Gallen. We’re going for a walk.’
‘Not going anywhere with Viktor’s gift-wrapping,’ said Gallen.
Duck-walking to a briefcase, Mulligan pulled out a set of flexi-cuffs and crouched to Gallen’s position. Locking Gallen’s wrists in place with the flexi-cuffs, Mulligan used a small pocket knife to slice the duct tape from where it was wrapped around his wrists and ankles.
‘Up,’ said Mulligan, gesturing with the pistol in Gallen’s face.
Another bullet hit the kitchen wall above the sink and Gallen groaned in pain as he got to his feet, his shin now throbbing and not wanting to take any weight.
‘Keep down, Kenny,’ he said, as Mulligan pushed him out of the kitchen and into an internal passageway. Opening what looked like a broom cupboard, Mulligan revealed a set of narrow stairs into the cellar.
Hobbling down the stairs into the musty basement, starbursts of pain in his eyes, Gallen looked around at a blue-grey furnace and a stack of beer crates. At the far end was a concrete ramp that rose to a trapdoor.
‘Move,’ said Mulligan, slapping Gallen over the head with his pistol. ‘You disappoint me, Gerry—we had a deal.’
Gallen climbed the ramp and waited for Mulligan. He wanted the spook to climb the ramp and put himself in range of a kick— maybe he could knock him on his ass, take the weapon and turn the tables. But Mulligan gestured to Gallen to slide the bolt himself.
Reaching above his head Gallen slid the internal bolt with both hands as the gunfire abated.
‘Now push it open,’ said Mulligan, and Gallen pushed up with his manacled hands, forcing the left-side trapdoor over. Light flooded onto them and Gallen stepped up further: the entrance came out behind a water tank and a wood pile.
Mulligan joined him in the cold air as Gallen saw a man he didn’t recognise run towards the farmhouse. Mulligan shoved him in the back and Gallen limped towards the barn, his left foot now virtually dragging along the gravel, the agony roaring throughout his body.
They got to the barn without being seen and Mulligan forced him upstairs to the hay mow. As Gallen looked around, Mulligan shoved him again and his leg wouldn’t take the weight. He collapsed against an old square hay bale, which looked tiny compared to the large round bales stacked along the back of the mow.
‘I don’t have Florita,’ he gasped, reaching for his shin but too scared to touch it.
‘No kidding,’ said Mulligan. ‘So who’s out there?’
‘My guys,’ said Gallen, his voice a thin rasp.
Mulligan peered through a gap in the boards. ‘Two F-250s and at least five operators. You don’t have those numbers, Ace. So who’d you call?’
Gallen gasped. ‘I called God, you asshole.’
‘Fuck you, Gallen,’ said Mulligan, pressing the barrel of the pistol against Gallen’s forehead. ‘I gave you a deal for Florita and you pull an ambush? On me?!’
Gallen’s eyes rolled as the pain overwhelmed his senses. He could barely think. Above him he saw the workings of a barn like the one he grew up with, stacks of round bales along the barn wall and the old hay gantry running the length of the pitched ceiling, a hundred feet in the air. Looking around he realised he was sitting on the loading platform of the mow, and in the corner of his eye was a loop of hemp rope tied to a cleat in a basic horseman’s hitch. If this barn worked the same way as Sweet Clover’s, that rope was the hay gantry tie-off.
Mulligan cocked the action on his pistol. ‘I go down, you go down, Gerry. You got that, you fucking redneck hillbilly? ‘
Smiling, Gallen looked his killer in the eyes. ‘Us hillbillies, we got one thing going for us.’
‘Last words, Gerry.’
‘We know how a hay mow works.’
The spook squinted in confusion as Gallen reached behind his right shoulder and slipped the pulley rope from its tie-off. The pulley block hanging just below the ceiling held a six-hundred-pound round bale aloft; released from the tie-off, it descended a hundred feet with a whir of rope, slowing only as it crushed a man who didn’t know how a hay mow worked.
As the bale bounced in front of Gallen and rolled away, a thickset Lebanese man scoped the hay mow with his assault rifle and turned back to Gallen.
‘Arkie,’ said Gallen, weak. ‘My instructions worked?’
‘No, you can thank Chase for that,’ said the smiling mercenary. ‘He tracks all his vehicles with RFDs.’
~ * ~
CHAPTER 70
The blonde woman who smiled too much put the coffee on the desk in front of Gallen and left the observation room. He picked it up
and sipped as Aaron Michaels adjusted the sound volume in the room. Behind the one-way glass in front of them, Florita Mendes spoke in relaxed but articulate sentences with two NSA spooks who’d been interviewing her for the past hour and ten minutes.
‘Like I said, Aaron,’ said Gallen, feeling his shin itch beneath the cast. ‘I’m not hearing many discrepancies here.’
‘Yeah, she’s pretty clean,’ said Aaron. ‘But I don’t want to cut an immunity deal and be embarrassed by it.’
