‘I don’t follow.’
‘My friends expect their operators to skim a little, take what they can hide in their pants,’ said Dale, opening his palms in the gesture of a reasonable man. ‘It’s hard out there and no one gets paid what they worth. But when you take the whole fleece from these people, there’s consequences.’
Gallen sagged a little, dragged on the smoke as he thought about it. What had Kenny got himself into? ‘So this is a spook thing, right, Ern? You doing clean-up duty for the Pentagon? Bunch of spooks missed their pay-day, they call in their old buddy Ern to track it down?’
‘Don’t play games, Gerry,’ said Dale, crushing out his cigarette. ‘Where is it? On the farm? You got Roy on the job?’
‘No, Ern.’
‘That lawyer, right? Or that bank? You were in there an hour and they got safe-deposit boxes down there, Gerry.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Yeah, but Kenny does, I bet.’
‘Look, Ern—’
Dale held up his hand as if something had just occurred to him. ‘Hey, how about this, Gerry? That girlfriend of yours. She keeping something for ya?’
Gallen blushed. ‘I don’t have no girlfriend.’
‘Sure you do, Gerry. Fine-lookin’ filly. Looks like…’ He turned to Simon and clicked his fingers. ‘Who that Hollywood actress you and Bren say she look like?’
‘Diane Lane,’ said Simon through the bloody rag he was holding to his mouth.
‘That’s it,’ Ern said, facing Gallen. ‘Diane Lane. That’s who—’
‘Her name’s Yvonne and she knows less than me, Ern,’ said Gallen, understanding that Dale was trying to push him.
‘Or Momma? She doing well for herself, Gerry. Got that nice place round Diamond Head.’
Gallen tried to control his response. Ern Dale was doing to him what he’d just done to Simon. Trying to bust him up a little, get him talking loose and emotional.
‘Well, Ern,’ he said through clenched teeth, ‘just as we’re getting all friendly, you have to make it like that.’
‘Don’t have to be like that, Gerry.’
Gallen took a deep breath. ‘You’re not talking to Kenny? ‘
Dale swapped a look with Simon.
Gallen didn’t like it. ‘Where’s Kenny? He okay?’
The noises started as a distant scuffle and the three of them stopped and listened.
And then a shot rang out.
CHAPTER 54
‘Simon,’ said Dale, raising his 9mm and waving it at the door. ‘Check it out.’
Getting to his feet, Gallen looked to the door as multiple shots suggested people firing back.
‘Let’s wait, Gerry,’ said Dale. ‘We still got business.’
The gunshots abated and male voices yelled from another part of the building. Gallen’s instincts were to take shelter, find a weapon, organise a defence or counter-attack. He could now see a second doorway at the other end of the empty showroom and he wondered what was behind it.
As the voices got closer, Gallen noticed Dale’s expression changing.
‘Stay there,’ said Dale, checking his pistol as he moved towards the door Simon had just exited.
Gallen moved in behind Dale, not wanting to stand out in the open.
‘You deaf, Gerry?’ said Dale, swinging around and levelling the handgun. ‘I said stay there.’
Gallen raised his hands slightly and stopped. As Ern Dale turned back to the door, a dark-clad figure appeared in the doorframe, his handgun rising at Dale and Gallen.
‘Shit,’ said Gallen, diving for the wall to his right. It was Paul Mulligan.
The gunfire started as Gallen slid against the wall and dropped to a crouch. Splinters flew off the doorframe where Mulligan had just been as Dale returned fire.
‘Ern, it’s me — Mulligan,’ came the voice from around the corner. ‘Paul Mulligan.’
‘The fuck are my boys,’ yelled Dale, aimed-up at the door. ‘What you do with my guys?’
‘It’s a misunderstanding, Ern,’ came Mulligan’s syrupy voice. ‘Gallen’s got something of mine, that’s all.’
‘So join the club,’ said Dale.
‘We’ve got Winter already,’ came the spook’s voice. ‘Let me have Gallen and you walk. I got no fight with you.’
‘Got no fight with you neither, Mulligan,’ said Dale, ‘so you be on your way and I’ll get on with my business.’
Gallen had heard enough. If Mulligan and Dale were going to make a deal, he’d be the loser. Eyeing his backpack on the floor at the far wall, Gallen broke from his position and sprinted the twenty yards to the second door.
Spinning, Dale let a shot go at Gallen and it zinged into the lino in front of his feet, making him stumble. As he dived behind the picnic table and chairs, sliding into his backpack, he watched Dale swing back to the main doorway in time for Mulligan to enter again, this time with an M4 assault rifle.
Grabbing the backpack, Gallen got to his feet in a panic and made the door as Dale took a hit and went down. Bullets smashed up the doorframe and the ceiling of the stairwell on the other side as Gallen burst through.
Panicked, gasping for air, he took the stairs three at a time as he made for the fire exit at the bottom of the stairwell. As he hit it and threw his weight into the locking bar, he felt his shoulder almost break as he bounced off and fell to the concrete.
Locked. Who the hell locked a fire door?
Looking around, Gallen struggled for air. There was no other exit. He was trapped. He’d just disobeyed one of the first commandments of special forces training: don’t enter a situation you can’t get out of.
He thought about running back up the stairs, but as he looked up a leg kicked back the shredded door and then Mulligan was standing on the landing, black overcoat over a dark suit with no tie. With the M4 carbine held across his midriff, he looked more like a Chicago gangster than a Pentagon spook.
‘You like making me work for this, Gerry?’ he said. ‘This is how you want it?’
‘You employed me, Paul,’ said Gallen, not getting enough air. ‘This has been a wall-to-wall cluster.’
‘Let’s make it simple, Gerry, ‘cos the cops are on their way and I’m not hanging around.’
‘Where’s Kenny?’ said Gallen.
‘Here’s a better question,’ said Mulligan, padding down the steps but keeping the black carbine trained on Gallen’s chest. ‘Is the Newport report in that bag?’
‘You know the answer to that,’ said Gallen.
‘Throw it here and that’s your end, okay, Gerry?’
Gallen smiled. ‘Trust me, I’m a spy. Right?’
‘Throw it here or I shoot you and pick it up myself.’
Gallen had nothing left, but he had a reputation and that might be worth a bluff. ‘Can you shoot me dead before I draw down the SIG in this bag, Paul?’
Mulligan stopped on the steps, his shoes crunching on dry concrete as they looked at one another.
‘That’s your gamble,’ Gallen continued. ‘Office guy making a fifteen-yard shot? You might hit me, but if you don’t kill me then I draw down and put three slugs into you before I even hit the deck.’
Gallen watched Mulligan’s throat bob, then the M4 was rising to Mulligan’s eye-line. Gallen started his prayers: there was no SIG in the bag, there’d be no shoot-out, and to take down his opponent he’d have to run up twenty stairs.
The gunshot came quickly and Gallen winced, hoping he got it straight through the heart. He embarrassed himself by shutting his eyes.
But he wasn’t hit. Opening his eyes he saw a spray of blood, then Mulligan’s legs folded and he spilled face-first down the remaining stairs in a clatter of rifle and shoes, and came to rest at Gallen’s feet. At the top of the stairs, Ern Dale lay on the concrete, collapsed, pistol still in his right hand.
Grabbing the M4, Gallen bounded up the stairs. Rolling Dale onto his back, he saw several gunshot wounds in the man’s chest and one in the bowel. Ern was not going to make it.