‘I’ll give you fifteen minutes, then I’m coming in,’ said Gallen, reflexively checking his SIG.
Aaron smiled. ‘I’m gonna do this the subtle way, if you don’t mind.’
Watching Aaron walk up the cobbled driveway, Gallen thought he saw a movement at a curtain upstairs.
The front door opened and a sensibly dressed woman made an inquiring face at Aaron, who went into his song-and-dance act.
Ninety seconds later, he was back in the van.
‘How’d that go?’ asked Gallen.
‘Just Barry Long, from the subs desk at the Herald, returning Lars’s laptop,’ said Aaron.
‘She say where he is?’
‘Called away on assignment,’ said Aaron, looking at the house. ‘Urgent matter, had to go last night. Hush-hush.’
‘Believe her?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Lars and Wendy don’t have kids living at home. It’s just them.’
‘So?’
‘So why does a housewife need two BlackBerries charging on the hall table?’
Aaron had barely clicked on the cellular networking icon when the MS Word document started transmitting.
‘The fuck was that?’ came the grumpy voice of a stressed man.
‘Barry,’ said Wendy. ‘Barry Long? From a desk at work. Submissions?’
‘Subs desk,’ said Lars, anxiety in his voice. ‘Barry? The fuck he want, this time of night?’
‘Dropped off your laptop, darling. It’s right there.’
‘My laptop’s upstairs. What the—’
In the van they could hear the sounds of a bag being unzipped and the shuffles and scrapes of the laptop being picked up.
‘This Barry — what’d he look like?’
‘Tall, well-dressed. Quite stylish.’
‘On all counts, that wouldn’t be a sub-editor,’ said Lars, snarling. ‘And if it was Barry, he’d be half in the bag by now. Was this guy drunk?’
‘No. Very sober, very charming.’
‘Shit!’
‘What’s wrong, darling?’
The voices became more faint until they were mumbles. Then a door slammed and the muffled conservation ceased.
‘Lars has left the building,’ said Aaron.
‘Backyard?’
‘Probably,’ said Aaron.
‘You stay here, I’m going for a stroll down the alley.’
Gallen walked around the block, turned into the back lane behind the house and felt his phone buzzing against his leg.
‘Yep.’
‘The garage door is going up,’ said Aaron. ‘Lars is moving.’
Gallen jogged around the block, wondering how he got here, in the middle of Calgary suburbia. When he was in the jungles of the Philippines and then the hills of Afghanistan, it used to suddenly occur to him that the life he’d chosen always seemed to drop him someplace he didn’t belong, to wander through someone else’s life. To operate in a place you knew nothing about, amid people you didn’t understand, you had to burn at a high adrenaline rate, had to maintain hyper-vigilance and observation until it became automatic. And once you lived your life in that way, long-term paranoia was the inevitable result.
He felt that now, breath coming fast, heart banging in his temples, total, full-body alertness — a two-legged wolf padding across the concrete, eyes scanning, ears straining, and pity the poor motherfucker who threatened him now, ‘cos he’d draw down the SIG and drop ‘em where they stood. And he’d do it like he was in a trance.
First the tyres screeched with the over-revved engine and then came the sickening crunch of steel on steel, shattering the serenity of the evening.
Picking up the pace, Gallen rounded the corner and saw a blue Nissan Maxima buried in the front of their white van.
Drawing his handgun, he approached the crash site at a fast jog as the driver of the Maxima got to the passenger window of the van and started screaming.
Gallen saw Aaron’s hands held up in surrender and a man — Lars Flint — shouting at him. ‘I told you fuckers, I’m not doing it anymore. I’m not playing this game no more!’
Lars was purple in the face with rage. Porch lights came on along the street and Gallen stowed his weapon as he closed on the man.
‘Lars?’ he said, as the newspaper man kicked at the front tyre of the van.
‘I want them out of my life,’ screamed the journalist. ‘Okay? This ain’t 1992 no more, okay? I’m fucking sick of this shit.’
Looking at Aaron, Gallen mouthed the word ‘drive’.
As his partner jumped across to the driver’s side, Gallen had a quick look around and decided he was well situated in the darkness afforded by the van.
Slapping the reporter hard on the face, he walked around the stunned man and put a fast carotid hold on him, cradling his fall as he fainted.
Dragging him backwards across the pavement, Gallen saw the van door slide back and Aaron’s hands reach out for the limp journalist, pulling him in as Gallen shut the sliding door.
Leaping into the passenger seat, Gallen put his hand over his face as Aaron backed away from the smashed Maxima and then gunned the van’s engine as they raced down the street, right front fender scraping on the tyre.
‘Fuck,’ Gallen panted as they took a left and then right and got onto Southland, aiming for the rush-hour crowds on the Macleod Trail.
‘You got a plan for Lars?’ said Aaron, eyes in the rear-view mirror as much as they were on the road in front.
‘Plan was to shut him up, get him off the street.’
‘Like they say in the classics,’ said Aaron, sweat on his forehead, ‘you break it, you own it.’
‘Find us a quiet spot,’ said Gallen. ‘It’s time for a chat.’
CHAPTER 47
At the dark edges of a trucking hub beside Union Cemetery, Aaron stopped the van and turned in his seat.
Gallen sat on the bench seat beside Lars Flint, whom he’d handcuffed with duct tape and blindfolded with a sweatshirt tied around his face.
‘You know who I am?’ said Gallen, soft and friendly.
‘No,’ said Flint, a quaver in his voice. ‘I don’t even know where I am.’
‘Are you Lars Flint?’
Flint’s throat bobbed. ‘Yes. Are you going to kill me?’
‘Are you a journalist?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you a senior writer on the Calgary Herald?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Have you recently written about Russian oil companies?’
‘Shit,’ said Flint, hysteria in his voice. ‘You’re the Russians? Oh, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Who told you to write the story?’ said Gallen, maintaining calm, just like they taught you in special forces.
‘Fuck!’ said Flint, back heaving. ‘I’m so sick of this.’
‘Who gave you the information, Lars?’ prompted Gallen. ‘You help me with this and I’ll help you with your problem. That fair?’
Gallen swapped a look with Aaron as Flint cried softly. Across the huge concrete apron, trucks emitted their high-pitched beeps as they reversed into loading bays. The nocturnal mission of shifting stuff all over North America was going about its business, but Lars Flint wasn’t going anywhere.
‘Who made you do this, Lars?’
‘A man.’
‘What kind of man, Lars?’