“Simon?” I had a tight edge to my voice. “Don’t fuck with me, Greg.”
He shrugged slightly. His eyes slid sideways to look at Sheri, then his gaze snapped back to me. “He’s safe.”
“He’s not here,” Niall said, his voice low. “Why should we believe you?” I could feel the tension vibrating through his body.
Greg stared back at Niall. “Niall Sutherland. Another of Judith’s finest. Guess you’ll have to take my word for it, won’t you?” He tugged sharply at Sheri, and she stumbled a little. “Just the two of us. Deal with it.”
“So why are you here, Greg?” I pulled his attention back to me. “To tell us all about your campaign of horror and violence?”
His eyes narrowed. I wasn’t sure he could tell sarcasm from admiration. From me, anyway. “There are things I want you to know. Both of you. Things you need to know, why you deserve what’s happened to you. What’s going to happen to you. Telling you how stupid you’ve been.”
“You mean about the bombs? The booby traps? The poisons by post?” Niall sounded a little too sharp for my liking. I didn’t want Greg spooked. Not just yet, anyway.
“Cool it, Niall.” I felt his growl of frustration, but I didn’t turn to meet his look. “They didn’t work, though, Greg, did they? The campaign has been fitful, to say the least. We’re still here, you can see that. That’s something I need to tell you.”
He scowled. I was provoking him, but carefully, I hoped. “You shouldn’t be here, Tanner. The rifle should’ve taken you out, if I hadn’t been distracted by that fucking dog. And then the bomb… I still can’t understand how it didn’t destroy the whole damned trailer.”
“You have that fucking dog to thank for that as well,” I said dryly. I watched him carefully, but at the same time I was measuring up the distance between us; the hold he had on Sheri; the stability of his grip on his gun. I suspected that Niall was doing the same. “How’d you get the dog out of the way in the first place?”
A fleeting smile chased over his face, an important assessment of his mood. “I had a good look around the park when we brought Sutherland here that first time. The damned dog was keeping an eye on me, and it was obvious the big guy was his owner. I noticed those gaudy scarves he wears, and there were a couple hanging out of a back window of the trailer. So while I was waiting for you to finish your chat with Judith, I borrowed one. Easy to do it on the pretext of strolling around the site, checking security. I reckoned it’d come in handy if I came back to the site. Which I did, of course.” He moistened his lips, eager to tell us how clever he was. “It seemed ridiculously easy to plant a bomb under a trailer, especially in a dump like this. So I came back early yesterday morning, to set it up. The scarf was really useful then, you see. It lulled the stupid brute. He recognized the smell and half-trusted me. It was enough to get him over to my car. I fed him some meat full of sedatives and dragged him in when he started to collapse.”
“No one saw you?”
He unconsciously lifted his chin. He was damned proud of his resourcefulness. “No, of course not. I parked the car behind some empty trailers. No one was around. But I admit it all took longer than I hoped. He’s damned heavy, you know? I only had time to drop him in the warehouse across the way. I’d hoped to take him to the docks and lose him in the river once and for all.”
I shivered slightly. I think Sheri whimpered under her gag.
“Then I came back to set the bomb, but by the time I was ready to get the hell out of here, you turned up and got in the way. So I thought there was no harm in taking you out a little ahead of schedule.” He looked at my shoulder pointedly.
I shrugged, making a huge effort to make it look as limber as the other one. “You missed.”
He caught my eye and smirked. “Not completely.”
I couldn’t answer; couldn’t deny it.
“You made yourself out to be a clumsy novice on the shooting range,” came Niall’s voice beside me. He sounded calm. I think he’d tuned in to my own tone. “Which are you? Unskilled—or unlucky?”
Greg frowned. “I’m okay. But I admit I didn’t want you thinking I was any kind of a shooter. It served my purposes to be thought of as a dumb newbie.”
And maybe you really were crap, anyway. But that was barely enough to console me today.
“And what the fuck do you care?” he continued, belligerently. “At this range, I won’t miss either of you.” He lifted his arm and aimed the gun speculatively at us.
“That’s fine,” I said quickly. “We get the picture, okay?”
He glanced back at me, his eyes wary but with a flicker of self-satisfaction. “You’d still never have caught me. You were down, and your partner was bent over you, and there was no one else around. I couldn’t think where the hell everyone had gone, but it meant I could make an easy getaway. I was on my way back to the car when that dog came bounding back.” He looked both angry and amazed. “Can you believe it? The idiots from this park had been right on my heels, searching for him. For a pet. I mean, how stupid is that?” I reserved judgment; I assumed he wasn’t looking for an answer. “I had barely enough time to hide the gun, then the crazed beast bit my ass and I was hauled into your trailer by its owner. Damned guy looks as mad as the dog.”
I saw Sheri’s red-rimmed eyes widen angrily. “Shut up, Greg,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow, grinning insolently at me. “It didn’t matter in the end. It took me a few hours, but I got away from you again. Easily.” He smiled then, and I was shocked to see the contrast between this slice of malice and his pleasant grin of previous times. “And I set the timer on the bomb on my way out. Plus I gathered a hostage.”
“So clever,” I murmured.
He took my words at face value. It was like he swelled up with pride. “You never thought I could do all this, did you? But it’s served my purposes to be seen as the loyal little sidekick all the time I’ve been at the Team. A bit of a kid, no spunk, no threat. I sat and whimpered in that pathetic trailer of yours, and neither of you had any idea who you were holding. When Cissy told you she had an e-mail from Simon requesting me back at base, you never thought twice about letting me go.”
“You’d set that mail up in advance,” Niall said.
Greg just smiled again. “Easy to do, with Brad’s help. Not that he realized what he was showing me. His notes have often found their way to my desk. I just haven’t passed them on for anyone else’s attention.”
There was a brief silence. I could see tears in Sheri’s eyes and no relaxation of Greg’s hold. Niall and I could have rushed him, and maybe if we caught him unawares, he wouldn’t have hit anyone with that gun.
Or maybe not.
“What about the other attacks? On buildings? On cars?” Niall touched my arm. Had he guessed what I was thinking?
Greg shrugged. “Okay, so you can call it my practice. To see what worked. Or maybe to confuse everyone, before I homed in on what I really wanted.” He himself looked mildly confused. I wondered if his campaign had been more luck than judgment; whether he’d started in passion, rather than to a plan. Whether he’d over-reached himself.
I could only hope.
“Why?” Niall asked. “Why did you do all this, Greg?”
Before anyone could speak, a drop of water tapped on my shoulder and dribbled down my arm. It had run down from the roof and pooled on the top lip of the doorway, before falling on to me. “It’s starting to rain,” I said.
Greg looked briefly irritated.
“Come inside,” I said. “You know we’re unarmed. Bring Sheri in, and we can talk about everything there.”
“For God’s sake, Tanner—” Niall began angrily, but I ignored him, just holding Greg’s gaze.
“We can stand here, Niall, and get drenched,” I said quite sharply. “Or we can go inside. What’s it matter? While he has Sheri, he has the advantage.”
Greg tilted his head, weighing up my suggestion. He looked from my determined face to Niall’s scowl.
Then he gestured with the gun for us to go in ahead of him, tugged at Sheri’s belt, and the two of them stumbled forward to follow.
WE ALL crammed into my living room, but it wasn’t like we were gathering for any kind of tea party. I switched on the lamp, its light creeping dimly over the shapes of people and furniture. Greg waved the two of us over towards the kitchen alcove, and he nudged Sheri down on to the couch. He stood beside her, watching us on the other side of the narrow room. There was nothing but the card table between us. I’d cleared it of everything except for the radio, perched on top of it.
There was no sound in the trailer except for our labored breathing.
I leaned back carefully against the wall, trying to look a little more relaxed than I actually was. Niall stayed in the alcove, watching Greg. I couldn’t see his face except in profile, but I hoped he wasn’t going to try anything rash.
“So we’ve established you’re a good actor,” I said steadily. “What performance do you have for us all now?”
Greg brushed some drops of rain off his jacket. Then he looked up and stared at us both. I couldn’t see what he was looking at, or for. But Niall drew in a sharp breath at my side. What did he see?
“Greg.” I made my voice sound calm and reasonable. “Let Sheri go at least. She’s got nothing to do with all this, has she? How can she? No, let her go and we can sort it out between us. I understand how you’re feeling—”
“Shut the fuck up!” His head shook sharply with the words, and I paused.
“Okay, that was patronizing. I’ll apologize if you think it’ll make any difference. I just don’t see why she has to be involved.”
“That’s the way it always is, though, isn’t it?” He sounded angrier now, and I was alarmed. “People who’ve done nothing to anyone get dragged into your mess, and you’re the last to see anything wrong in it.”
I carefully blanked my expression. “Greg, tell me what it is I’ve done to you. What we’ve all done. It’s obviously important to you, and I want to understand. Maybe I want to learn where I’ve gone wrong.”
He didn’t really seem to be listening. Sheri huddled up on the couch, keeping as far away from him as possible, but she was still well within firing range. He leaned slightly forward to give extra emphasis, and he seemed to lose total control of his breathing. The words started to spill out of him in erratic, passionate bursts. “It’s all fucking wrong. It’s not just important to me, there are all kinds of people it affects. But what do you care? They’re not part of your special little clique. They’re all nothing! Invisible… ignored. The fucking Team, its stupid agenda, and its arrogant, self-important missions. That’s all that matters. Your decisions, your orders, your actions. What makes you think you’re the good guys? You fuck up lives, just the same. Hell, people are just trying to get by and make some money, or keep themselves off the street. But no, you think you know better. And all the time, you’ve actually sold out to the bad guys. Those slimy public figures—you sweep over their fuck-ups, ignore the mess they’ve left behind. And if anything doesn’t fit your image of yourselves? You just dump it, smack down anyone who tries to fight back—”
“Kes,” Niall said, suddenly. “The boy, Kes. You’re related to him.”
Huh? That was the name of the boy who knifed Niall. The air seemed to freeze in the room. My flesh ran cold.
Greg’s head snapped quickly toward him and I didn’t mistake the flash of grudging surprise in his eyes. “So you’re the smart one, Sutherland. How did you guess?”
“Your eyes,” Niall said. His body was very still, and I knew that was a measure of his tension. “There’s something in them now I recognize. Your resentment about the Team and its missions. Your talk of us challenging those who fight back.”
I was wondering whether to pitch in. I was still in shock, but of course Niall would know the look of the boy who tried to kill him. How hard was it for him to look into the memory of those eyes?
Greg’s voice sharpened. “My brother. He’s my little brother. He was young and scared and you all fell on him like avenging gods. You locked him up for life with lunatics and psychos.”
“He tried to kill me, Greg.” Niall’s voice was very flat.
“He was defending himself!” Greg shouted back. “I taught him to use a knife in case he was ever scared and threatened. Why’d you attack him?”
“It wasn’t like that.” I could see Niall was struggling with the memories, with the need to handle Greg carefully.
“Kes isn’t in some lunatic ward, Greg. He’s getting proper psychiatric help.”
“That’s crap, Tanner!”
“How would you know?” I asked, quietly but very clearly. “You’ve never been to see him. He’s never had any visitors or family contact at all.”
A stricken look snagged across Greg’s face, and the gun shook in his hand. I saw the muscles in Niall’s arms tighten.
“I can’t do that. I can’t go to see him, can I? They’ll lock me up too.”
“Tell me, then,” I said. I straightened up from the wall, but I didn’t move any nearer. He was very volatile. “Tell me about Kes. Tell me why you’ve cut him loose like you have.”
THE RAIN outside was getting heavier; I could hear it pattering on the roof of the trailer. Greg had been silent for a few moments, his eyes flickering fiercely as if he debated with his own mind.
“I’m listening,” I said. A captive audience. “Why were you afraid to visit your brother? Surely we didn’t even know you then, you hadn’t joined the Department. We didn’t see any connection between you and the club. You weren’t there during the raid.”
He wasn’t soothed. “Your kind doesn’t need evidence, does it? You’d targeted that place, and the whole fucking lot had to be cleansed. They were just kids! They didn’t know what the fuck was going on.” He glared at me, full of pure anger. “I read the report! This great Team of some kind of secret fucking agents, charging in to the rescue. No, I wasn’t there, but then, anyone who was on the payroll would have run the same risk of being hounded and persecuted and thrown in the same kind of shithole as my brother—”
“So you were on the payroll. Of that brothel.”
His tone was defensive now, and maybe a little proud. Misplaced, you might say, but then he was drifting way beyond rational at the moment. “Yes, I was. I helped set the place up, you know? In the early days, it was just a small club, a personal space, just for some special people I knew. They’d helped me when Mom died, helped me start up on my own. They deserved their entertainment, and they were good to the youngsters. They’re the kind of people who know what it’s like to be a kid on the streets. They offer protection, offer an alternative. I was proud to take that.”
I thanked God he was too engrossed in his own narrative to see the horrified disgust I was sure shone in my eyes. I’d met more than a few of that kind of people in my life.
He was babbling on, regardless. “That guy you arrested, the one who was the owner? He’d taken the club away from me a year or so back, flooding it with kids who were too young to control, opening the membership far beyond what was safe and discreet. But I… I didn’t have the money any more to keep it going, and he did. I knew exactly how much money he had, actually. I’d stayed on to do their books. That, and to keep watch over Kes. Anyway, that was until your raid on the place put me out of a job.”
“Maybe you should have moved on,” I said. “With your brother. Did you think of that, Greg? Did you think of that alternative?”
He ignored me. His mind was embedded in the past, the memories festering. “Just one morning away from the place… just one morning! I always visited at least once a day, but I had to go to the bank that day. Just one morning and this gang calling itself the Team sweeps in like human garbage men.”
“Your brother was being used as a whore,” Niall said, his voice steady again. He was with me on this, on nudging the pathetic confessions out of Greg. But it must have cost him, revisiting the mission, hear
ing the shocking tale from the other point of view. I’d never wished more fiercely that I could touch him, comfort him, support him.
“We came to help the kids,” he said. “Not hurt them.”
Greg whirled on him, a sneer on his face. “What did you know about what help they needed? What help he needed? It was all under control for Kes and me, I can assure you. We had a plan for the future, money and transport, I was going to take care of everything. Just sticking it out for another year or so more, then we’d go away. He understood that. It wasn’t so bad there. He was fine with it.”
“You pimped him,” Niall said, unrelenting. “He was one of those kids for entertainment.”
“No! That’s crap. I protected him. I brought him up. He relied on me. And now you’ve split us apart.”
“There was no record of a brother on your file when you joined the Department,” I said.
He laughed. “There never has been anything to connect us officially. We had different fathers, or that’s what I assume. Neither of us knew any parent except Mom, and she… had a drug problem. She didn’t bother registering him when he was born. She was careless with stuff like that. We didn’t even answer to the same surname. When she died, we went out on our own, and he didn’t need documents and numbers. He had me to sort everything out. It was the same at the club, and he knew I’d always look after him there. Besides, with all the kids that came and went, it’s easy to lose identities, to twist records and confuse authorities. It never bothered us, but I guess it caused problems for you. When you took him away, was it easy to establish his identity? To trace any family for him?”
“There was nothing,” I said. It had been a bad time for me personally, of course, but that hadn’t stopped me poring over notes in the dark hours of the night, finding out everything I could about the raid, following every scrap of documentation I could find in case it looked different on the hundredth read-through.
Dreamspinner Press Year Four Greatest Hits Page 95
