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  Raines couldn’t tell if Butler was joking or not.

  ‘You know me better than that.’

  Butler grunted again; Raines was unsure if it was anger, derision or something in between.

  Raines didn’t know Butler well. Had trusted Andy Johnson’s recommendation. Johnson had been the one to float the idea that grew into the business conducted out at the compound and in the UK. Johnson had spent all the money he earned after he got out of the army — as a private security consultant in Iraq and Afghanistan — and was getting desperate for cash. Butler had worked with Johnson in Afghanistan and had contacts in the drug trade there — which he had revealed to Johnson on one particularly drunken night.

  Johnson had stayed in touch with Raines. He heard about Matt Horn’s problems from Raines. Knew that he, too, was desperate for money.

  For Raines it was a matter of the end justifying the means. Getting enough money together to get Horn out of the hospital and finding him a pair of artificial legs he could at least walk on. The ones he’d been given at the hospital rubbed his skin so badly that he’d been bedridden with infected blisters for weeks. And then the real infection had set in — almost killing him.

  But Raines had grown to believe now that he had much more in common with Butler than with either Johnson or Matt Horn: that this line of work fed the need they both had to express themselves through violence.

  In quieter moments, Raines wondered if he had always been a man who lived for violence and the adrenalin rush of it. And whether the war, the events that day after they left the poppy field and the indignities suffered by Matt at the hands of his so-called country had simply unleashed the real Seth Raines, free from the restrictions that society sought to impose.

  ‘Where do I get my gear now if you’re getting out — from the Mexicans?’

  ‘That’s up to you.’

  ‘You’re abandoning me, is that it?’

  ‘Hardly. You’ll work something out.’

  ‘Couldn’t be any worse than the fucking mess Horn has made of it,’ Butler snorted. ‘Your little buddy with the chemistry degree who was supposed to run the manufacturing end of things. And look at us now. See how that turned out.’

  ‘You’ve had more ODs too?’

  ‘Yeah. And I had to cover my tracks.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean. I had to leave some cold ones behind and the cops are sniffing around.’

  Raines pulled at the collar of his shirt. It felt like things were close to being out of control. First Johnson was killed for skimming profits, then Stark and now Butler was losing it. They were all at risk.

  ‘I worry about Matt,’ he told Butler.

  ‘He never did have the stomach for it. Not after he was out and hobbling around on his new legs.’

  ‘We had an undercover FBI agent trying to infiltrate us.’

  ‘What?’ Butler shouted. ‘Because of Matt?’

  ‘No. I mean, I don’t think so. I don’t know.’

  ‘So why are you worried about him? You’re not making any sense.’

  ‘He’s depressed. About the overdoses we had here. I don’t think he can take it any more.’

  ‘So do what I did.’

  Raines wasn’t sure what he meant and said so.

  ‘Take him out. It’s the only way you can be sure he won’t turn you in.’

  The thought had passed through Raines’s mind more than once. But it seemed like such a waste. This whole thing got started to get Matt out of the hospital. To get him well. It was only after that, when the operation grew, that they hatched the notion of doing something more with it.

  ‘Look,’ Butler said. ‘Fuck him. And fuck the FBI. You do what I did. You take out anyone who is a threat. A weak link. Don’t even think twice about it. Doesn’t matter if they are civilians or if they wear a badge. There’s only two types of people: soldiers and all the rest. And the rest of them don’t matter.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. You do what you have to and I’ll do the same. I can take care of myself.’

  ‘Okay. We won’t speak again.’

  ‘It’s been… interesting.’

  Raines drove to Matt Horn’s house and sat in the car parked along the street. It was still light outside. His gun was in a holster under the front passenger seat. He leaned down and grabbed it, taking the gun out and sitting it on his lap. Closed his eyes. Saw it all play out.

  Matt in the hospital screaming. Wanting to know why him.

  The overbearing arrogance and lack of interest among the hospital bureaucrats: only interested in how much money they could make from the treatment.

  Matt fading away as the multiple infections took hold and ravaged his body.

  Him lashing out in the hospital waiting area, trashing the place.

  The condescending replies to his letters.

  Drinking himself into a stupor and making the threats.

  Then, at the bottom of his despair, the thought of exploiting the contacts Johnson and Butler had made back in Afghanistan. Those men seemed like magnets for others soaked in violence and blood.

  Raines tried to remember how he justified what he’d done in his own mind. He couldn’t have contemplated such a thing before the war. Before Matt. Wondered if his mind had snapped. Maybe it was Matt reminding him of his own son and the pain and suffering he endured before the leukaemia finally took him far too young.

  He wondered if he’d ever been truly sane since his son had died. Thought that probably he had not.

  Raines’s attention was drawn to a taxi pulling up outside Horn’s house. The front door of the house opened and Horn walked stiffly out to the taxi and climbed awkwardly into the back seat.

  ‘Where are you going, Matt?’ Raines said aloud.

  Raines started his car and followed the taxi.

  14

  ‘Cooper Grange,’ Danny Collins said for the third time in as many minutes. ‘Sounds like a cowboy.’

  He turned in the passenger seat of the car being driven by Jake Hunter and looked at Logan and Cahill in the back seat.

  ‘Does he wear a Stetson?’

  ‘Not last time I looked,’ Logan told him.

  They had called Webb at the FBI field office and arranged to meet him and Grange there. Webb told them to park on the street outside the building and Grange would meet them to take them to the office on the top floor. Hunter and Collins had not said much about their investigation to Webb on the phone except that there was a link to a group of ex-soldiers with a possible connection to a Mexican drug cartel. That was enough for Webb.

  Grange was standing on the pavement and walked to the car as Hunter pulled up at the kerb. His suit still looked immaculate after what had obviously been a long day for him, judging by the smudges of dark skin under his eyes.

  Logan and Cahill hung back while Hunter and Collins introduced themselves and shook hands with Grange. Grange gave Cahill a look but said nothing, ushering the four of them forward and into the building lobby where they walked to the bank of elevators.

  Webb was waiting for them in the conference room next to his office at the end of the hall. His jacket was draped over a chair and he had loosened his tie and his shirt cuffs. Hunter introduced himself and Collins.

  ‘We should get down to business,’ Webb said as he sat.

  Hunter and Collins took seats side by side.

  ‘What about these two?’ Grange said, looking at Logan and Cahill. ‘They can’t be here for this.’

  Webb looked from Grange to Hunter.

  ‘What do you think, Detective?’

  Hunter turned in his seat to look at them.

  ‘It’s fine with me if they stay. I mean, they’re the ones who put us together.’

  ‘By withholding information,’ Grange said.

  ‘You want to lock them up in your basement?’ Collins asked.

  ‘Danny…’ Hunter frowned at his partner.

  Grange
still wasn’t happy.

  ‘He’s got clearance,’ he said, jabbing a finger at Cahill. ‘But the lawyer doesn’t. He shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘The lawyer stays,’ Cahill said.

  ‘No,’ Logan answered. ‘I don’t want to get in the way of this happening. Show me where I can get a drink and something to eat and I’ll wait for you guys.’

  Cahill opened his mouth to protest but Logan cut him off.

  ‘We’re all supposed to be on the same side,’ Logan said.

  ‘Coop,’ Webb said to Grange. ‘The least you can do for the man is get him comfortable. It might be a long night.’

  Grange huffed out a breath and opened the door, waiting for Logan to step out into the hall. From there, he led Logan back to the reception area and through a secure door behind it into an open-plan office area. Logan figured that this was where the regular agents went about their ordinary business. The place was largely empty apart from a female agent at a desk by a window and the two Hispanic agents who had picked them up at the airport — Martinez and Ruiz. They sat at desks facing one another and looked over as Grange came in.

  ‘Look after this one,’ Grange told them. ‘Get him a coffee or something.’

  He turned and walked back out the same door without waiting for an acknowledgement. Logan stared at the two agents who looked at one another. Finally, Ruiz got up and came over to where Logan stood.

  ‘So, is it coffee? Or do you English types like tea?’

  ‘I’m not English.’

  Ruiz frowned.

  ‘Scotland’s a different country.’

  ‘Whatever. What’s it to be?’

  ‘Coffee is fine.’

  Grange came back into the conference room, walked around to the far side of the table and sat next to Webb. He kept his suit jacket on. Hunter, Collins and Cahill were on the other side of the table.

  ‘I don’t buy into any of that inter-agency competition,’ Webb started. ‘We’re all chasing the same goal so why don’t I explain where I’m coming from.’

  ‘Go ahead.’ Hunter nodded.

  Webb placed his hand on a file that sat on the table in front of him and slid it across to Hunter.

  ‘Seth Raines came on to our radar maybe a year ago,’ Webb said, pointing at the file which Hunter opened.

  ‘He was a platoon sergeant in the Marines. First Recon Division. That’ll mean something to you, Mr Cahill.’

  Cahill nodded.

  ‘Anyway, he was nearing the end of a tour in Afghanistan around two years ago when he was caught in an ambush in Helmand Province. The vehicle he was travelling in was hit by an IED, a mine, and came under heavy fire from entrenched enemy positions.’

  Hunter flicked through the file till he found a photograph of Raines. Cahill leaned in and looked at the photo. It showed a man in a typical military pose: upright and composed. He had a cartoonishly square jaw and eyes that were almost black. The tips of tattoos showed on his neck above the collar of his shirt.

  ‘Casualties?’ Cahill asked, looking at Webb.

  ‘Four dead including a female British army officer. Multiple wounded.’

  ‘What about Raines?’

  ‘He took a round through the leg. Anyway, Raines and one of his men, Matthew Horn, were in a small convoy that had been monitoring the eradication of an opium poppy field and were returning to base when they got hit. It was a fierce encounter according to the official reports. Raines and a British soldier…’ Webb opened another file on the table and ran his finger down a report. ‘Corporal Andrew Johnson of the Royal Military Police, distinguished themselves in the action. Saved a lot of lives according to this. Johnson suffered a gunshot wound to his head. He survived it but had to be discharged from service. He became unstable. Violent. Badly injured a couple of civilians in a fight.’

  Webb tapped the report in the file on the table.

  ‘So what went wrong with Raines?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘Raines’s man, Matthew Horn, received severe injuries. Double leg amputations. He suffered very badly in hospital when he got back here. Infections and that type of thing. Almost died.’

  ‘What about Raines’s injuries?’

  ‘He recovered fairly quickly.’

  ‘And psychologically?’

  ‘I guess we wouldn’t be here if the same could be said for his mind.’

  ‘Tell us the rest.’

  ‘Okay, so Raines is released from hospital but starts to make some noises about Horn’s treatment. Showed up at the hospital and wrecked the place one time. He got arrested for that. Then he starts writing letters to just about everyone. Around the time Horn was at his worst he started making veiled threats in the letters.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘How this country wasn’t fulfilling its obligations to its servicemen and that someone would have to pay for that. Nothing too specific.’

  ‘And this is how you get involved?’

  ‘Yes,’ Grange said. ‘We take that kind of threat very seriously.’

  ‘You think the arrest sent him over the edge?’ Cahill asked Grange.

  ‘Maybe. Who knows.’

  Cahill was not warming to Cooper Grange.

  ‘Anyway,’ Webb went on, ‘we sent a couple of agents to talk to his ex-wife and to Raines. He didn’t respond to the interview at all. Pretty much ignored them.’

  ‘And it’s after this that he starts buying up weapons and goes off the grid?’ Cahill asked.

  ‘Correct. And it looks like he recruited some other like-minded veterans.’

  ‘So how does Tim Stark get mixed up in all of this? I mean, he was still with the Secret Service.’

  Grange leaned forward and spoke.

  ‘We wanted to infiltrate covertly and we needed a back-story that would stand up to scrutiny. Someone with a tale to tell of anti-government sympathies. Stark had applied to come back to the Agency and with his previous background here it struck us as the perfect opportunity to manufacture him getting sacked and that being the cause of his unhappiness.’

  ‘Raines never bought it,’ Cahill said. ‘That much is obvious now, right?’

  ‘We think so,’ Webb said. ‘Tim was using the name John Reece on the flight to Washington. That was a cover identity set up for him so that he could get out quickly and it was supposed to be untraceable.’

  ‘He never got close enough to know what they were doing?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘He was doing okay for the first few months,’ Grange said. ‘We got regular reports. Then they got less and less frequent. It was getting risky for him.’

  ‘Which brings us to you, Detective,’ Webb said to Hunter. ‘What’s the story with your case?’

  15

  Logan looked at Ruiz and Martinez when his phone rang. He took it from his pocket to turn it off and saw that it was Irvine calling.

  ‘Hey,’ she said when he answered the phone. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Becky? What time is it there?’

  ‘Late. Or maybe it’s early. Depends on how you look at it.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. I can’t sleep. This case I’m working on, you know. So I thought I’d call.’

  ‘I’m glad you did.’

  ‘What you up to? Alex keeping you out of trouble?’

  ‘Uh, not really. Believe it or not I’m sitting in the Denver field office of the FBI.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Long story. And before that we were at the police headquarters.’

  ‘Sounds like a typical Alex Cahill holiday plan.’

  Logan laughed.

  ‘Tell you about it when I get back. But what’s up with your case?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was a tough day. We were at a scene. Multiple deaths. One was a boy, just a teenager.’

  ‘Sounds bad.’

  ‘It was. I hate this drug stuff. Give me a robbery any day.’

  Drug stuff.

  ‘But I’m already feeling better,’ Irvine went on. ‘I mean, talking to
you.’

  Logan was only half listening. The other part of his mind was rewinding to an earlier conversation with her. Something about heroin overdoses that CID was asked to look at. He stood and walked out into the reception area out of earshot of the agents.

  ‘You said something before,’ he said to her. ‘About drug-related deaths.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s this case. The thing today. Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe nothing, but the reason we’re here, at the FBI, is kind of similar.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I guess I’m not making much sense. Sorry. Must be the jet lag.’

  ‘Similar to what?’

  ‘I mean, drug overdoses. They’ve had a few here as well. Seems like there’s something going on with ex-soldiers.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Becky…’

  ‘Somebody told me today that there are former soldiers involved in my case. You remember the murder I told you about — the one in the newspapers? Guy got shot dead in a Range Rover. Andrew Johnson. He’s one of them. Not that the guy who told me is all that reliable a source and I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet.’

  Logan sat at the receptionist’s chair and grabbed a pen, twisting it in his free hand.

  ‘You’re jet-lagged and I’m up in the middle of the night,’ Irvine laughed. ‘We’re making a lot of sense.’

  Logan put the pen down and ran his hand up, through his hair. He leaned back in the chair as the female agent came out into the reception area. She glanced at him as she walked past and went out to the elevators.

  ‘Where’s Alex?’ Irvine asked.

  ‘He’s locked in with the FBI chiefs and the cops right now talking about this stuff.’

  ‘How come you’re excluded?’

  ‘Nobody likes lawyers.’

  ‘I kind of like this one.’

  He smiled. ‘Nice of you to say.’

  ‘Listen, I’m going to go back to bed. See if I can’t get some sleep before the alarm goes off. I expect I’ll be up to my neck in paperwork tomorrow. It’ll be a nightmare.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll see you when I get back.’

  Irvine sat the phone handset down on the kitchen table and sipped at a cup of tea. It was comforting in the middle of the night when the darkest kind of man was still out there.