‘You really want him in your crew?’
Gallen was confused.
‘Take a look.’ Mulligan pushed the manila folder at Gallen as he stood and took a note from Aaron. ‘Gotta go, Gerry. There’s an apartment on the next floor for you. Let’s talk tomorrow and get you on the job?’
‘What about Kenny?’ Gallen squinted into the sun.
‘If you’re happy, then I’m happy,’ said Mulligan. ‘But you know about the DD, right? ‘
‘No.’ Gallen looked at the folder like it was poison ivy. ‘For what?’
‘It’s all in there and I’m not having a hernia about it.’ Mulligan threw a linen sports coat over his arm. ‘It’s not unusual to end your career with a court martial when you do what Kenny did.’
‘What did Kenny do?’
‘You don’t know?’ said Mulligan as he got to the sliding doors. ‘Sergeant Kenny Winter was an assassin. Damn good one, too.’
CHAPTER 7
The sunset lingered over the Pacific in a long blaze of orange as the waitress delivered two more Buds off the handle. Easing back from his surf ‘n’ turf, a specialty of the Pacific Mariners Yacht Club, Gallen wished he could light a smoke.
He and Winter had spoken about life on the farm and how different things could have been if they’d been raised in southern California: no hockey fights, no rodeo hangovers, no hauling water in an ice-bound barn at six in the morning, getting tired before school even started.
‘Must be some drawback to living in this place,’ said Winter, wiping his fingers before grabbing his beer. ‘Just ain’t seen it yet.’
Gallen knew the Canadian wanted to know about the gig so he got straight to the point. ‘Kenny, they raised something in your file.’
‘The DD?’ said Winter, expressionless.
‘Gave me a NATO-ISAF file,’ said Gallen, meaning the International Security Assistance Force fielded by NATO in Afghanistan. ‘You seconded from the Canadian Forces?’
Winter gulped at the beer and looked out at the marina. ‘I’m not at liberty, Gerry. I stayed out of the stockade because I signed their goddamn NDA.’
‘ND what?’
‘Non-disclosure agreement,’ said Winter. ‘Said if I wrote a book about their fricking court martial they’d cut my benefits. Couldn’t do that to my kids, right? Ryan got teeth needing braces.’
‘Shit,’ said Gallen. ‘Could’ve told me this.’
‘Told you what?’ said Winter, ligaments straining in his bull neck. ‘That I got a dishonourable discharge but it was all horse shit? That those cocksuckers were passing the buck all the way down to the trigger-man earning sixty-eight grand?’ Throwing his napkin on the table, he stood.
‘Sit down,’ said Gallen, avoiding eye contact. ‘Please.’
The Canadian stood over him, a classic hockey player from the prairies: six-two and built like a refrigerator; big farm-boy hands and arms like slabs of rock against the side of his chest. In a street fight, Gallen would have two, maybe three seconds to immobilise someone like Kenny Winter before the sheer power overwhelmed him.
Winter’s jaw muscles tensed and then relaxed. ‘Sorry ‘bout that, boss,’ he said, sitting and reaching for his beer.
Drinking in silence, they watched the sunset fade to purple and yellow.
Winter cleared his throat. ‘Can we just say I was a supplies corporal who screwed up?’
‘Sent toilet-blue when they wanted diesel?’
‘Something like that. Don’t wanna lie to you, Gerry, but I can’t share the details.’
‘Okay, you’re in,’ said Gallen. ‘But my number two is Bren Dale. Worked with him in the Ghan.’
‘Happy to be a soldier.’ Winter shrugged. ‘So, three of us?’
‘Four,’ said Gallen. ‘Donny McCann said yes.’
‘Recon?’
‘Yep. We were a good crew, but never any babysitting for oil executives.’
‘What about these people were working for?’ asked Winter. ‘The dude you disarmed? Or the one with the sign? Didn’t look like no office boys to me.’
‘They’re ex-intel, ex-military,’ said Gallen. ‘But I think they’re the good guys.’
‘You know this Mulligan?’
Gallen nodded. ‘Paul Mulligan, ex-DIA.’
‘He looks corporate.’
‘Annapolis boy, rose to captain in the ONI,’ said Gallen. ‘He’s out of the spooking game now.’
‘Okay,’ said Winter. ‘So why was I being followed in the cab?’
Gallen paused. ‘Today?’
‘Late-model Impala, California plates,’ said Winter.
Gallen held his gaze. ‘They show ‘emselves?’
‘No,’ said Winter. ‘Peeled off a mile short of the apartment building.’
‘Knew where you were going?’
‘Seems like it.’
Gallen tried to relax. This wasn’t Afghanistan, wasn’t a Taliban stronghold. He had to detune from that old shit or he’d go crazy. ‘Okay, let’s keep an eye on that.’
‘We can get eyes now,’ said Winter, a smile creasing his long face.
‘Now?’
‘Other side of the road, in that Spanish cafe,’ said Winter. ‘Back in the shadows, at the bar. I make an Anglo male, early thirties, glassing us. Been there since we arrived.’
Without looking in the direction Winter had indicated, Gallen excused himself to take a pee. Along the hallway to the washrooms, he found a credenza sitting in front of a window. Peering through the leaves of a lily, careful not to make a silhouette, he stood still and let his eyes adjust to the change in light across eighty yards, from shade to light to shade.
After ten seconds he picked up what Winter had seen: a lone man, behind the brass tap bollards, with a set of field-glasses to his eyes. The trajectory suggested surveillance of the Pacific Mariners Yacht Club restaurant.
Leaning back, Gallen held up three fingers at Winter: three minutes then come get me.
Charging down the stairs, Gallen passed the girl at the club desk and bought a white PMYC polo shirt and a club cap, putting them on as he pushed out into the heat of early evening. Walking fast through the foot traffic he crossed the road with other walkers and kept his eyes on the tarmac, his mind running over the possibilities: Mulligan had left a dinner comp for the yacht club restaurant, and Gallen had decided to use it — now they were being followed. What were the chances of that being a coincidence?
The rules of engagement in recon units changed with the target and the gig: you were either pure reconnaissance or direct action and very rarely both. But one rule overrode all the rest: if a shadow attached itself to your party, you got to the bottom of who that fucker was and you did it real fast. Whether you scared him off, killed him or dragged him into a basement for a conversation, that was up to people like Gallen. But no special forces commanding officer ever let an undeclared snoop conduct counter-surveillance without there being some consequences. It wasn’t the reputation you wanted in the field, that you’d let that go.
Gallen decided to flush the watcher, see what he’d do, where he’d run. The Colt was back in the apartment, but the surprise factor would balance it out.
Rounding the sidewalk area of the restaurant, Gallen glanced up and saw Winter at the table in the yacht club: they’d been seated perfectly for surveillance.
Pushing into the shade, Gallen walked to the bar and kept his eyes on the tanned girl in the black tank top. Moving to his left, he could see the watcher from the corner of his eye, the pocket-sized Pentax binoculars held up to his face. Gallen ordered a beer and watched the field-glasses drop. Winter had obviously left the table at three minutes and the watcher was wondering where his target had gone.
Turning his head slowly, Gallen came eye to eye with the watcher: a sallow Anglo with goldfish eyes, which turned to saucers as Gallen gave him a wink.