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  ‘What were you doing down at the river?’ she said aloud.

  Dumping Joanna Lewski’s body.

  She reviewed the film again until she found a clear shot of the car’s licence plate and wrote it in her notes before calling DVLA. When she got through to the section she needed she explained who she was, gave her warrant card number and asked for confirmation of the registered keeper of the Mercedes.

  She wrote down the name that the operator gave her: Russell Hall.

  She called Armstrong and told him what she had found — asked if he had heard anything from his colleagues.

  ‘Nothing so far. Most of the guys here didn’t even know that Hall had left Frank Parker’s organisation. He’s covered his tracks well.’

  ‘You coming back here today?’

  ‘Probably not. There’re still some people I can talk to. Maybe hit the streets as well, to find some sources.’

  Irvine looked at her watch. It was approaching four in the afternoon.

  ‘I guess we’ve done what we can today,’ she said. ‘It all starts again tomorrow with the lab results from Hall’s scene.’

  ‘We’re a step closer than we were. That’s something.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said, not convinced.

  ‘You heard from your new best pal yet?’

  She didn’t know what he was talking about and said so.

  ‘Frank Parker.’

  Irvine sighed. ‘No. And get over it.’

  Part Eight:

  Brothers in Arms

  1

  Seth Raines dressed in a pair of Khaki Dockers and a black shirt. He was watching TV when his mobile phone rang. He recognised the number as being the passenger that he had taken up to the compound.

  ‘Everything is checked out at my end,’ the man on the other end of the line said. ‘Now it’s up to you. When do you want to exchange?’

  ‘I need to speak to my team.’

  ‘I appreciate that there’s a lot to prepare.’ The man paused. ‘Do you have any security concerns?’

  Raines wondered if the man was also having him followed and knew about his FBI shadows. Whatever. Honesty was how he liked to do business.

  ‘The FBI are following me.’

  ‘That’s unfortunate.’

  ‘They don’t have anything on me. It’s harassment.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘In the past I’ve had occasion to put some things in writing that may have upset some people. Given them a false impression of who I am and what I might do.’

  ‘False impression?’

  ‘Yes. Plus, we think that one of them was trying to infiltrate our team.’

  That brought a long silence. Raines said nothing for the duration.

  ‘This is the first I have heard of this.’

  ‘It’s sorted now. And, anyway, he never got close enough to know what we were planning.’

  ‘But they suspect something?’

  ‘They don’t have a clue what this is about.’

  ‘In my experience, they are not lateral thinkers.’

  ‘I agree. We’re safe.’

  ‘Do you have a contingency for dealing with the current FBI interest in you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They both knew what he meant.

  ‘Good. You’ll be in touch when the final timing is set?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The man ended the call without saying anything else.

  Raines knew that he needed to make at least one final trip up to the mountain compound before he finalised the arrangements with the man. That would prove awkward with the FBI tail. He wondered if it might be possible to go part of the way by bus or train and get one of the team to pick him up at the other end. That might be enough to get them off his tail.

  He dialled Matt Horn’s number.

  ‘How’s your head after last night, Seth?’

  ‘I’m fine. I didn’t have much anyway.’

  ‘Can’t say the same. What’s up?’

  ‘I got a call from the guy this morning.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s looking to finalise things. You’re okay with that now?’

  ‘Yes. But it doesn’t mean I have to sing and dance about it.’

  ‘No one’s asking you to. Listen, I need to go to the mountain to wrap things up. You have to be there as well.’

  ‘I know. When?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘What about your friends at the FBI?’

  ‘I’m still thinking about how to deal with them. Leave it with me.’

  2

  Cahill left the hotel room after seven on Thursday morning with Logan still asleep. He went down to the bar area and sat by the window before calling Tom Hardy. It was mid-afternoon back in the UK.

  ‘Tom, it’s me. I’m going to need to visit that contact you were arranging over here.’

  The gun.

  ‘Sure. Want me to e-mail you the details?’

  ‘Yeah. You got it now?’

  ‘I do. I’ll hang up and send it.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘She. It’s a woman.’

  ‘How do we know her? I mean, what’s her background?’

  ‘I didn’t enquire. She runs a legit gun shop. Does a sideline for those in need of something untraceable. I’m told that she is very careful to ensure that it’s only those with right on their side that she deals with.’

  Cahill smiled.

  ‘Use my name,’ Hardy said. ‘That’ll be good enough.’

  Cahill took a taxi to a suburb in the predominantly white South Denver area. The city was like a lot of the big metropolitan centres in the US — the neighbourhoods were divided largely by race. In Denver it was African Americans in the east, Hispanics on the north and west sides and whites in the south. There were always exceptions and, as the cab drew up on the opposite side of the street from the gun shop, Cahill saw a black woman behind the counter. It was eight-thirty and the shop was already open.

  He got out of the cab and spent a little time checking out the area. It was unremarkable. Neither particularly affluent nor poor, and the houses were clean and tidy with small, well-kept front yards. It was a good place for wanting to go unnoticed.

  Cahill walked across the street and went into the shop, a bell above his head ringing as he pushed the front door open. The woman behind the counter looked over at him and smiled. She was serving a man in a checked shirt wearing a Broncos cap.

  ‘Be with you in a minute,’ she said to him in a Boston accent — all elongated vowels. ‘Have a look around.’

  Cahill nodded and said he would. He didn’t know if she recognised him as one of her other customers.

  He walked around the small shop, marvelling again, now that he was home, at the availability of such destructive weapons to members of the public and seeing posters advertising gun clubs and shooting ranges. He was a trained soldier and knew how to use these things, but any idiot could walk in here and buy one if they checked out okay.

  Cahill was at the back of the shop when he heard the bell ring again as the other customer left. He walked over to the counter and smiled at the woman, offering his hand in greeting. She shook it.

  ‘I’m Elizabeth Holmes. Call me Lizzie. What can I do for you?’

  She had a firm handshake and wore a white T-shirt with a Smith amp; Wesson logo. Cahill could see the slender, well-toned muscles of her forearm as she shook his hand. Her hair was short and she had wide-set brown eyes. He made her for late forties.

  ‘Tom Hardy said I should come see you if I was in town,’ Cahill said.

  She held his hand a moment longer then released it, putting both her hands on her hips. It was a girlish pose, but she pulled it off.

  ‘I’m always happy to meet new friends,’ she said.

  ‘Likewise.’

  ‘You an ex-cop or what?’

  ‘Army then Secret Service.’

  ‘You get around. What you up to now?’

  Getting to know you.


  ‘Close protection. Corporates, politicians. That kind of thing, you know.’

  Her eyes opened wider. ‘Any celebrities?’

  ‘Sometimes. I mean, try to avoid them.’

  ‘Very sensible. Bet they pay well, though.’

  ‘That they do, Lizzie.’

  She looked at him for a moment and walked around the counter, heading for the front door.

  ‘Give me a second to close up and I’ll take you downstairs.’

  She turned a lock on the door and put a sign in the window telling her customers that she’d be back in a half-hour.

  ‘Follow me,’ she said as she went towards a door at the back of the counter area.

  He went through the door behind her and down a narrow set of stairs. There was another door at the bottom with three heavy-duty locks which she opened. The door swung inwards and Cahill could tell from the way she held it that it was armoured — the wood fascia intended as a disguise.

  He walked past her into a large, well-lit basement. It was a workshop with a couple of long benches and shelving racks on two walls. There was a large metal cabinet on one of the other walls.

  ‘What’s your story?’ Cahill asked as she picked a key from a chain attached to the belt of her jeans.

  She looked back at him from over her shoulder.

  ‘Boston PD. Twenty years.’

  ‘Why this now? Why Denver?’

  She shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  Cahill walked over to the cabinet as she opened it, displaying a number of handguns arranged on metal pins. There were two shelves at the bottom filled with boxes of ammunition.

  ‘Before we go any further,’ she said, turning to him and putting a hand firmly on his chest, ‘I know that you’ve been vouched for, but what’s your intention with my stuff?’

  ‘Defensive only.’

  She looked hard at his eyes.

  ‘Okay, soldier. I had to ask, you know.’

  It came out like: Okay, Soul-jah. Hadda ask, y’know.

  Cahill nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘What are you after?’

  Wotcha ahftah.

  ‘Something reliable, like a Glock.’

  ‘I got plenty of them bad boys. Take your pick.’

  Cahill looked at the guns and pointed to the one he wanted. She told him to go ahead and he lifted it from its mount and checked it out.

  ‘Good for you?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘It’ll do.’

  He reached down and grabbed an identical weapon.

  ‘And this,’ Cahill said. ‘Just, you know…’

  She nodded. ‘Can never be too careful. Ammo?’

  She was Cahill’s kind of person. Direct. No words wasted.

  He paid cash and took a box of bullets and two nylon holsters to go with the weapons. When they were done, she led him back up the stairs and into the main part of the shop.

  ‘You be careful out there, soldier,’ she told him as she unlocked the front door. ‘Bad people around, you know.’

  3

  Logan swung his legs out of bed and on to the carpet, scrunching his toes up and releasing them again. He saw that Cahill’s bed had been made up, the cover pulled military tight. A note on hotel paper was lying on the pillow. It was from Cahill: said he had gone out on an ‘errand’ and that Logan was to organise getting a car — ‘something with a big engine in case we need it.’

  Need it for what?

  He went for a shower and towelled dry, dressing in jeans and a plain navy T-shirt. He didn’t feel tired and was glad of getting a long period of uninterrupted sleep. He also felt hungry, so grabbed a lightweight Merrell walking jacket and went down to the restaurant to get something to eat.

  He checked his phone after breakfast but he had no messages. It was too early back home to call Ellie so he stuck the phone in his pocket and left to find the rental car place that he had seen in the mall last night.

  There wasn’t much foot traffic in the mall. It was a standard working day for most people and the city wasn’t exactly built as a holiday destination — not unless you were staying there to use it as a base for the nearby ski resorts.

  He spent an hour in the rental place, most of that time stuck behind a large American woman who insisted on telling the sales agent every detail of her flight down from Chicago and how she was visiting her sister who was ill and how her sister’s no good husband…

  Logan zoned out.

  After a brief attempt by the agent to sell him a convertible, Logan rented a Cadillac sedan with the biggest engine that they had. It sounded to Logan like it would be powerful enough for whatever Cahill had in mind. The agent gave him directions to the rental parking lot, where the cars were stored, and all the paperwork in a branded folder.

  Logan walked the short distance to the lot in the crisp morning air and found the car with the help of one of the attendants who looked about as bored as a person could. He started the car engine and it came to life with a satisfying growl. He spent fifteen minutes getting used to the car’s controls and driving around the lot to acclimatise himself to the automatic gearbox, and also turning left and right from the ‘wrong’ side. When he was happy, he looked in the car’s Sat Nav for a local landmark to give him on-the-road-driving experience and settled for the Denver Broncos’ stadium — Invesco Field at Mile High — because it was a little outside the centre of the city.

  The sky was clear again today and it was a pleasant drive to the stadium. He parked the car and went to the small museum to look around at old photos of the football team and learn about its history.

  When he was back outside, his phone rang.

  ‘You get a car?’ Cahill asked.

  ‘Yeah. A Cadillac.’

  ‘Sounds good. Where are you?’

  ‘Out at the football stadium.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No reason. Just went for a drive. What about you?’

  ‘Back at the hotel. You coming here now?’

  ‘Sure. You get your errand done?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Probably best if I don’t know what it was.’

  ‘You got it. Listen, I want to go see if we can speak to these people this afternoon.’

  Logan was about to ask what he meant, then remembered it would be to check out the D. Hunter list that Bruce had e-mailed over last night.

  ‘Okay. I’ll head back now. Ten, fifteen minutes.’

  Logan parked on the street near the hotel and bought a local newspaper — The Denver Post — before walking back to meet Cahill.

  ‘You should drive,’ Logan told Cahill. ‘You’re the native after all.’

  ‘Sure.’ Cahill nodded. ‘Think you can handle being my passenger?’

  Logan looked at his friend and, not for the first time, wondered if there was a tiny spark of madness inside his head — the kind of spark that marked men like Cahill out as different from everyone else.

  Men capable of going into battle and coming out the other side.

  4

  ‘We got a hit on the semen sample,’ Murphy told Irvine, perching on the edge of her desk.

  ‘You sure know the way to a woman’s heart.’ She smiled.

  He looked so pleased; Irvine didn’t want to burst his bubble by saying that she knew it would belong to Russell Hall. Let him have his moment.

  ‘Russell Hall,’ he said.

  ‘We know him. His name surfaced already.’

  ‘Is he in custody?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Depends on whether being in the care of the pathologist counts as being in custody.’

  ‘He’s dead?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Killed some time last night or this morning out in the east end. I guess he made someone unhappy when he killed Lewski.’

  Murphy put the DNA result on her desk and left. She felt kind of bad.

  She went back to her notes from the review of the CCTV footage. Looked again at the licence
number for Hall’s car. A thought struck her: how does a drug dealer finance a luxury car purchase? Probably not cash. That would arouse suspicion at the car dealership.

  What if he had an outstanding lease or finance contract?

  She accessed the force’s credit reference database and entered the details for the car. The search result told her that there was a loan on it for?10,000 through a little-known finance company. And that the loan was in the name of a company.

  She checked out the company. Its registered office was located at an accountancy firm: Marshall Scott.

  She was still for a beat. Then she called Armstrong and told him the news.

  ‘Can you get over here and we’ll drive up to see them?’ she said.

  ‘What about getting a warrant and doing a proper raid?’

  ‘We don’t have enough evidence for that yet. Let’s see what we can get by dropping in unannounced again.’

  ‘I’m leaving now.’

  ‘Run it all past me again,’ Armstrong said to Irvine as he drove. ‘So I’ve got it clear in my head, you know.’

  ‘Okay. So, Russell Hall used to run Frank Parker’s drug operation.’

  ‘I got that.’

  ‘But he left three months ago to join up with Johnson and now this as yet unidentified new boss. This new boss is probably the real owner of the flat that Lewski and Murray lived in — not the accountants.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Well, it’s all supposition at this point, but Hall was running around in a high-end car which was financed through a company with links to the accountants. Which probably means that they are dirty.’

  ‘You mean that they launder money for the organisation that Hall’s boss runs?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘And they are committed enough to their client’s cause to even use some of the money to buy flats for prostitutes and put the flats in their own names.’

  ‘That way the money looks even cleaner. I mean, it’s not even connected to Hall or the boss in any way.’

  ‘Right. And if they’re doing stuff as basic as organising finance for cars, it probably means that they have access to all of the financial information for the organisation.’