‘Barry,’ said Gallen, giving the underling a break. ‘You old dog’
‘Gerry.’ Barry turned. ‘Aren’t you dead?’
‘Wishful thinking, dude,’ said Gallen, amazed at the jungle drum in small towns. ‘Got a sec?’
Moving away from the mail van, Barry Teague — a high school buddy — lit a smoke and offered one. ‘So that was you, that shit up in Canada?’ he said, exhaling as he put away his smokes. ‘That limp— that’s part of it, right? ‘
‘Don’t worry about me, Barry,’ said Gallen. ‘They won’t let me pass till I’ve paid my taxes.’
Barry was angling for good dirt, first-hand gossip. ‘You still doin’ that black ops stuff, GG? You are, aintcha?’
‘I told you, Barry, I drove a truck. Most danger I ever saw was dealing with the Marines equivalent of you.’
‘I’m a softie, Gerry.’ Barry jacked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘That’s why they walk on me. Had a no-show yesterday, now I’m taking attitude from some Mexican who talks like a gangster.’
Gallen cringed. Wyoming was the most Anglo state in the US and he never liked to have those demographics supported by bigoted attitudes. ‘They all talk like that, these youngsters. It’s just a pose.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Barry sceptically. ‘So what’s up?’
‘Need to borrow your phone. Mine’s dead and I need to make a quick call.’
Pulling out his cell phone, Barry sighed. ‘We should have a drink sometime.’
‘Sure,’ said Gallen, fishing Winter’s number from his jacket pocket.
‘Bunch of us heading down to the Spotted Horse tonight. Few brews, bit of a laugh.’
‘Sounds cool,’ said Gallen, dialling the number.
‘Pick you up at six,’ said Barry. ‘It’s wings night down there. We’ll get in early, grab a table.’
‘Sure,’ said Gallen, walking away as the number rang. As Winter picked up, Gallen could have sworn Barry said ‘the Muskrats’.
The hawk swooped again as Gallen made his way around the southern boundary of the farm and had his horse climb the snow-covered levee. Along the old dike that kept the swamp on one side and the hay fields on the other, Gallen let the horse walk, his foot still too sore for a lope. After five minutes he came up to the hunting hide that Roy had built almost fifty years ago, when he was still a kid growing up on Sweet Clover. It was a twenty-by-twenty shack, with a shooting porch that looked out over the swamp for duck season, and a mess of sticks and branches on the other side, where it overlooked a stand of cedars and aspens — the deer stand.
A wisp of smoke drifted out of the steel chimney into the still, cold air and Gallen tied off the horse and entered, thankful for a warm stove.
‘That mare’s sore, right rear knee,’ said Winter, looking up from the table. ‘Might take a look.’
‘I’ll tell Roy,’ said Gallen, pushing his fingers into the bullring on the trapdoor beside the table, pulling up to show a six-pack of Coors Lights in the cage. Pulling off two of the cans, he let the beers back into the snow and peered through the slit windows as he cracked the beer. ‘I gather we’re alone?’
‘Did a three-sixty,’ said the Canadian, dressed in a black Tough Duck and jeans, his socked feet aimed at the stove. ‘We’re alone.’
‘How’s the leg?’
‘In and out, through the thigh,’ said Winter. ‘Just a nick on the artery, but it was lucky the medics were there.’
‘Okay—’
Winter shook his head and looked at the floor, tough guy dissolving to sombre. ‘Thought we’d lost you, boss. Shit! That fireball!’
‘Don’t remember it.’
Winter looked at him. ‘The fuel tank ignited and bounced twenty feet in front of you, boss, then a piece of the fire breaks off, lands on your feet.’
‘I remember the smell of being on fire.’
‘Better than the smell of me shitting myself — I never saw a fireball hitting a man before.’
‘It’s not something I recommend.’
‘I never liked that Aaron,’ said Winter. ‘But he came through. Not every man has the heart to jump on a fire with nothing but a blanket.’
Nodding, Gallen raised his beer and touched cans with Winter. ‘We still gotta job, believe it or not.’
‘Yeah, Aaron told me. You believe him?’
Gallen shrugged as Winter lit a cigarette. ‘My pay’s landing when it should.’
‘Same here.’
‘He wants me to lead the investigation, find these pricks.’
‘You want volunteers?’
Gallen looked into the eyes of a killer. ‘Kenny, it would have to be an investigation.’
‘Sure,’ Winter said.
‘I mean it. Once we start hunting these cocksuckers, we’ll leave a trail a mile wide and you can bet that the Mounties and the FBI have us as people of interest.’
Winter looked away. ‘You’re right.’
‘Okay,’ said Gallen. ‘So let’s start with what we know.’
‘Mulligan hires us, Aaron puts tags on our stuff.’
‘Aaron’s tags are declared, they’re from the accountants.’
‘Okay,’ said Winter. ‘So we bodyguard Harry Durville and a dude called Reggie gives him a fancy Inuit BlackBerry. Turns out to be a bomb.’
Gallen sipped on his beer. ‘We survive and when the helicopters roll in to grab what they want to grab, they’re surprised that we’re running around and shooting back.’
‘So they send another helo: this time they try to clean us up along with the search-and-rescue team.’
Gallen leaned forward. ‘This is the part I’m confused about: Durville’s bag doesn’t have any documents in it. If the mercs weren’t sent to retrieve them, what was their job?’
‘To kill Durville and anyone else who saw the meeting,’ said Winter. ‘The bombing was a hit.’
Gallen wasn’t convinced. ‘Harry Durville was involved in something huge up in Kugaaruk. I can’t believe he wasn’t carrying at least one piece of paper from that meeting.’
‘You think?’
‘Not even a memo, minutes of the meeting?’ said Gallen. ‘This is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and he’s accompanied by his chief legal counsel. What kind of attorney comes out of a meeting to secure the largest oil deposits in the world without documenting it? ‘
‘So we’re back to that,’ said Winter. ‘Someone stole the documents from his bag before he died. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t you and I’m fairly sure it weren’t Mike.’
‘Someone who knew where the documents were and how important they were,’ said Gallen.
‘So that leaves Florita and Donny,’ said Winter.
‘What did you say?’
Winter recoiled slightly. ‘Whoa, boss.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Gallen. ‘Donny?’
‘Just saying.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Gallen, slumping and drinking. ‘It could be Donny.’
‘You sure?’
‘No, I’m not.’ Gallen exhaled. ‘But Donny was secretly working for Paul Mulligan.’
‘What?!’
‘He was supposed to engineer a meeting between me and Mulligan when I went down to that fundraiser for Richards,’ said Gallen, massaging the bridge of his nose. ‘I assumed Mulligan had used Donny to get me into the Oasis gig. But given all this, it may have been deeper. Maybe he paid Donny to steal whatever documents came out of that meeting with Reggie.’
‘Donny woulda done that to you?’
Gallen nodded. ‘Donny wouldn’t have seen the damage. He’d have seen it as grabbin’ some lame-ass shit from some lame-ass corporate dude. No hurt, no foul.’
‘Well you know what that means, right, boss?’
Gallen put his elbows on the table, rubbing his temples. ‘Given that Durville sacked Mulligan the day before we flew north, it means we have an enemy who could be anywhere and who probably hasn’t secured those documents yet.’ He drank deeply. ‘It means we’d better make sure Florita doesn’t have them, because Mulligan might already be treating her as if she does.’