The guy held my gaze for twenty seconds. Then his eyes peeled away from mine. They moved slowly, as if drawn against his will, and settled on the muzzle of my Browning. I was holding it perfectly steady. I don’t know if he was taken with where it was pointing—straight at his head—or whether he recognized it as his friend’s.
“Drop your gun,” I said. “And kick it toward me.”
He did as he was told.
“Good,” I said, sitting down on the arm of the nearest couch. “Now, take out your phone . . .”
NINE
For the most part, in my mind at least, assignments seem very linear in nature at the outset.
Looking ahead to what you have to do, one event should lead to another, which should lead to another, until the job is done. Take a task I was given in Germany, last year. The brief was to fly to Berlin. Locate a woman who worked for one of their huge industrial conglomerates. Follow her to the railway station. Get on the same train. And make sure that by the time we reached Düsseldorf, the flash drive she was planning to sell was safely in my pocket and to the rest of the world, it looked like she’d suffered a heart attack in the middle of the packed lunch she’d brought for herself.
The snag is, of course, that real life never runs that smoothly. What starts out as a straight, easy path is soon beset with unscheduled twists and turns. Planes are late. People are sick. Trains are full. And while you can work your way around those kinds of obstacles without any great difficulty, you know that before long something more serious is going to happen. Your route is going to split in two, and you’re going to have to make a choice which way to go.
Pick the wrong branch, and you may fall flat.
But wait around for someone else to pick for you, and you’re guaranteed to end up on your face.
Fothergill pulled over behind a delivery truck outside the hotel’s loading dock. He waited just long enough for me to climb in beside him, then eased the police taxi neatly back into the flow of traffic. I was impatient to see him. He’d been evasive about progress when we spoke on the phone twenty minutes earlier, and the second I saw his face I knew I wasn’t going to be happy with his news.
“I couldn’t tail them any farther,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”
“Why not?” I said. “What happened?”
“They crossed the state line. Went into Indiana. A cab with Illinois plates was going to stand out a mile. They were bound to notice me. I had no choice. It was drop out, or get blown out.”
I didn’t reply.
“I know what I’m talking about, David,” he said. “You don’t stay in the game as long as me by taking stupid chances.”
“They went to Indiana?” I said. “The road they were on. Does it lead to a place called Gary?”
“Gary? Strange name for a place. That was Young’s first name, wasn’t it?”
“Does it go there?”
“I guess. Probably. I never go out that way, though. Is it important?”
“Could be. It adds weight to something one of the guys told me, upstairs.”
“You got them to talk?”
“One of them. He became quite chatty, for a while.”
“What did he say?”
“That they have McIntyre, as we thought. And the gas.”
“Damn. Where?”
“At some kind of abandoned industrial unit they found.”
“In this place, Gary?”
“Yes. So we need to head over there. And fast.”
“I don’t know. That could be dangerous. Won’t the guys from upstairs have warned them by now? To expect us? Or you, at least?”
“No.”
“You can’t assume that. They’re bound to have called. Or texted. Or e-mailed. Or done something to get word through.”
“Don’t worry. They’re in no position to communicate. Not any longer.”
“Why not? Where are they?”
“Depends on your religious outlook, I guess.”
“What?”
“Well, their bodies are still in the suite.”
“Oh. I see. So what happened?”
“Hard to say. You know how confused things can get when three guys hole up together for a while. Especially when they’re criminals. Highly strung. Unreliable. All in all, it was a recipe for chaos. Carnage was inevitable.”
“How does it look?”
“Like cabin fever set in. Their nerves frayed. They argued. Possibly over a glass that got broken in the kitchen, sometime. Things escalated. Spiraled out of control. Guy one pulled a gun. Guy two snapped his neck and took it. Shot guy three in the back of the head. Then turned the gun on himself. Tragic, really. Such a waste of youth. And bullets.”
Fothergill didn’t reply for a good thirty seconds.
“Did you make it seem watertight, at least?” he said, eventually.
“That’s doubtful,” I said. “The police will see through it in a heartbeat, if they have a half-decent look. Some heat could well be coming our way. As soon as someone finds the bodies. That’s why I’m giving you the heads-up, now.”
“You killed them?”
I didn’t reply.
“They’re dead?” he said. “All of them?”
“It would appear so,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because you told me they couldn’t be arrested. Because London wanted this whole thing cleared up, off the books. And because they killed Young.”
“Off the books doesn’t mean executing people, David. There are other ways. And a couple of hours ago you were ready to kill Young yourself.”
“Young’s one of ours. His mess is ours to deal with. He crossed a line that we defined. And there’s a world of difference between London ordering a hard arrest, and some murderous lowlifes whacking him because they mistook his identity.”
“Mistook it for what? Who, I mean?”
“Me.”
“What? Why? How do you know?”
“Their boss told me so. He thought it was Young who killed his guys when they went to snatch McIntyre. So actually, it was me they were aiming to kill in that bathroom. Young got his throat cut on my behalf.”
“So now what? You feel guilty?”
“Of course not. For what? Young should have been more careful. The rest is just business.”
“It smacks of something else to me. They threatened you, so now your knickers are in a twist. You’re lashing out, indiscriminately.”
“My knickers are in—forget it. Watch the CCTV from the club. I’m just being practical. What happens if McIntyre blabs? Tells them it wasn’t Young who stepped in at the apartment?”
He didn’t reply.
“And aside from any of that, here’s what it all boils down to,” I said. “These people came here to buy gas that kills children. I don’t see a burning need to keep them alive. Do you?”
Fothergill kept silent and concentrated on the traffic until we were two-thirds of the way up Michigan Avenue. Then he pulled over and turned to face me.
“You look pleased with yourself,” I said.
“I am, as it happens,” he said. “I’ve just thought of a way to turn this situation to our advantage. You have an address in Gary, where these people will be?”
“Not exactly an address. More of a rough description.”
“No matter. It’s close enough. And it could be all I need to make London change their minds.”
“About what?”
“Sending a team. Sounds to me like there’s every possibility we’ll need to assault the place. And you can’t do that on your own, now, can you?”
“I like the way you think.”
“Thank you. Now, let’s get the wheels in motion. Want to grab a bite on the way to the office? We could be there for a while.”
“You could be. I’m not coming to the office.”
“What do you mean? I thought we just agreed?”