By the time he was halfway through the smoke, Gallen’s pulse beat at his temples. The approach was clandestine, the men in the car were shrinking further into the shadows. Plunging his smoke into the sand box beside the door, he returned to the room, just a motel guest having a cigarette before bed.
Turning on the TV and the bedside lamp, Gallen got to his knees and crawled to his overnight bag on the bed, found his farrier’s penknife complete with hoof picks and a Phillips screwdriver.
Crawling to the bathroom, he stood and set to work on the screws that held the security screen in place over the lavatory. Standing on the toilet seat, he removed the security screen, slid back the six frosted-glass slats and placed them on the security screen now sitting on the basin’s counter top.
It was a twenty-foot drop to the concrete path below. Making sure he had his room key, Gallen shimmied through the narrow space, grabbed at the plumbing sticking out of the wall, and twisted himself upright as he emerged into the night. Panting from the exertion as the pipes took his weight, he pulled his legs out, scraping his new Wranglers across the cinder blocks, and let himself drop to the concrete path. Pausing, he could hear Tyler Richards’ fundraiser hitting another gear as the band covered ‘Friends in Low Places’, the singalong drowning out the band’s vocalist.
Padding along the path, Gallen watched the plumes of steam shooting from his mouth as the still Wyoming night plunged to freezing. Feeling the frost crystals crunch under his feet as he passed through the maids’ passageway, he paused where the dark tunnel opened to the neon-flooded car park. To the left sat his truck, a white F-350, where Gallen knew a Ruger .38 handgun was taped beneath the driver’s seat. Opposite the truck, the Crown Vic sat in silence.
Moving under cover of the shadows that surrounded the courtyard, Gallen stealthed around the motel until he found a hide — the service alley on the other side of the courtyard, which was positioned almost behind the Crown Vic.
In the darkness, Gallen squinted into the car, looking for two shapes. Beside him was a sand box, and he had an idea. A door opened on the upstairs balcony where a drunk yelled into a cell phone. Using the distraction, Gallen grabbed the sand box off its wooden legs and moved through the dark blind spot behind the Crown Vic. Closing on it quickly, he threw the sand box over the car and watched it land on the hood of the vehicle. As the driver emerged to investigate, Gallen leapt from the shadows, punching the tallish man in the side of the throat with a fast right hand. Throwing a forearm around the man’s neck as his legs gave way, Gallen reached for the exposed shoulder holster as he slammed the man’s head into the doorframe.
The holster was empty.
‘Shit,’ he said, seeing a black Beretta 9mm lying in the front seat console.
Dropping the driver, Gallen reached for the firearm in the car. As his fingers closed on the gun, another hand slapped down on it and Gallen, kneeling on the driver’s seat, froze as he stared into the eyes of the passenger.
‘Hello, Gerry,’ said the dark-haired man, who was dressed like an accountant but held a handgun steady at Gallen’s heart.
‘Paul,’ said Gallen, his eyes fixed on a face he hadn’t seen for two years.
‘Long time—’ started the man, then there was a blur of movement and a thudding sound, and Paul Mulligan’s eyes rolled back before his head lolled sideways into Gallen’s chest.
Grabbing the Beretta off the unconscious man, Gallen looked up and saw a dark face peering in the passenger side of the Crown Vic.
‘You okay, boss?’ said the man, tyre iron held down by his Lakers boxer shorts.
‘Am now,’ said Gallen, pushing Paul Mulligan off his chest. ‘Thanks, Donny — I owe you, man.’
CHAPTER 2
The eggs weren’t to Gallen’s liking but the coffee and biscuit at the motel restaurant worked fine. Raising a finger for a refill he took note of the clock, which showed 7.08 am. Around him sales people and businessmen were reading their comped Star-Tribs, hair wet, tiny nicks betraying rushed shaving. Outside, the interstate rigs roared by on Highway 220, heading south for Rawlins and Colorado.
‘No milk, right?’ said the waitress, a brown-eyed thirty-year-old with biker rings.
‘You got it,’ said Gallen, scrolling through the contacts on his cell phone and double-tapping the listing that said Kenny.
The phone rang twice as drizzle descended on 220.
‘Yep,’ said the croaky voice.
‘Kenny — Gerry.’
‘Hey, boss.’
‘How those horses?’ said Gallen, as a Crown Vic pulled up in a parking space outside.
‘Easy,’ said Kenny. ‘That limp on the sorrel weren’t nothing but an abscess.’
‘Can we do anything with ‘em?’
‘Sure. Had that mare over some rails yesterday, after you left.’
Gallen watched Paul Mulligan stalk to the restaurant door, white plaster fastened behind his ear.
‘These people want the nags ready for the No More Snow, come May,’ said Gallen into the phone. ‘Can we do this in five weeks?’
‘Sure,’ said Kenny. ‘They’re good ponies.’
‘I’ll see you for lunch.’ Gallen disconnected as Mulligan threw his Star-Trib on the table and eased sideways onto the vinyl.
‘Ace. How’s the eggs?’ said the former spook, his dark hair having receded further since Gallen knew him in Kandahar and Marjah.
‘They’re edible. The biscuit’s good,’ said Gallen.
Mulligan ordered the Red Butte Special Breakfast. ‘Steve’s feeling okay. Thanks for asking.’
‘Steve got out of the car,’ said Gallen, sipping the coffee. ‘Never get out of the vehicle, right, Paul?’
‘Yeah, well,’ said Mulligan. ‘I stayed in the vehicle and got a headache the size of Montana for my trouble.’
Mulligan’s coffee arrived and they sat in silence, Mulligan checking emails on his BlackBerry. When his basket of biscuit was slapped on the table, he pushed it across to Gallen. For people like Paul Mulligan, biscuit was redneck food.
‘So?’ said Mulligan.
‘So, what?’ said Gallen, wanting to stand out in the drizzle and smoke a cigarette.
‘So,’ said Mulligan. ‘Told me to meet you at seven for breakfast. Here I am, Ace.’
‘No, Paul,’ said Gallen. ‘I told you I’d be in the restaurant first thing, should you want to talk like a normal human being.’
‘Normal’s a relative term with us, don’t ya think?’
‘By normal I mean talk to me, don’t stalk me.’
Mulligan leaned back, rubbed his eyes. He was four or five years older than Gallen, a DIA operative who’d worked in the Special Intelligence Unit. The SIU had done the homework on so-called High-Value Targets in Afghanistan, and sent teams of SEALs, Green Berets and Force Recon soldiers to either find out more or snatch an HVT. The relationship between the intel guys and special forces soldiers was, at best, coldly professional and at worst, totally dysfunctional. From the perspective of the operational leaders in Afghanistan— the special forces captains — the problems started with incomplete briefings, continued with amended orders mid-mission and was capped by a constant sense of hidden motivations in just about every word uttered by an SIU spook.
Gallen had history with Paul Mulligan, a mission in northeast Afghanistan in 2006. It had started with a need for detailed surveillance of a Taliban HVT — a trucking operator named Al Meni— with apparent ties to Pakistani intelligence. The spooks had wanted photographic evidence of Al Meni and his secret associates to clarify what they’d intercepted in the cell phone traffic. But as Gallen’s team had prepared to wind up, the recon gig had suddenly been amended to a snatch of Al Meni and his family. It was a disaster: a newbie fresh in from Camp Pendleton had been killed by Taliban sniper fire and Joe Nyles had lost his leg from a lobbed IED. The ambush had been located on a route Gallen had never intended to use and had therefore not recce’d.