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 name 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?’