“I think I’m the man who saved your son, sir,” Patrick said. “And I think we should just stop posturing before one of us gets carried away.”
“You think you scare me?”
“I think it’s mutually assured destruction, and I brought my girlfriend,” Patrick said, and smiled. “So one of us is more confident.”
“Or more stupid.”
Patrick just waited. He sipped scotch. Brent didn’t sip, but he gulped the rest of his bourbon, and after a solid minute of silence, said, “I don’t deny you did my son right. Favor’s owed to you by him, not by me.”
“He isn’t here. You are. I think it’s more a family debt.”
“Case could be made,” Brent acknowledged, and then sat back and pushed away his empty glass. Bryn tensed, because it was the kind of move a man made before going for a weapon. Not this man, though. He stayed still, waiting to see what they’d do, and when neither she nor Patrick reacted, he nodded. “Tell me what you want.”
“I need to know where to find a man, and I need you to take the news we were here to your goddamn grave, sir. Deep black. You get me?”
“I get you. What’s the name?”
Patrick hadn’t ever asked, and now he looked at Bryn. She resisted the urge to nervously clear her throat, and said, in a gratifyingly calm voice, “Martin Damien Reynolds.”
“Shit,” Brent said. “You people.”
“You know him?” Patrick asked, and now there was a little trace of a frown on his face. If Brent did know the man, that would, Bryn realized, be a terrible complication. This was a world of favors, and if Brent owed a bigger one to Reynolds . . .
“I know of him,” Brent said, which was a relief. “What if I told you that bastard was in Paris?”
“What if I told you I’ve noticed that people who phrase things that way are full of bullshit?” Bryn asked. “He’s not in Paris. He’s not anywhere but in Northern California, so let’s try this again.”
That got her the second smile of the meeting from Brent. She didn’t like that one any better than the first. “Where the hell did McCallister dig you up, cupcake?”
That made her almost laugh, in a sweep of bleak humor. Dig you up, indeed. McCallister cut her off, though, by saying, “She’s ex-army, so knock it off or she’ll knock something off of you, Major. And she’s right. Stop fucking around.”
“Buy me another round.”
Patrick’s frustration showed in the way he yanked the curtain back and signaled the bartender, but not in his expression as he turned back. “Well?”
Brent drew it out as long as he could, waiting until the drink was delivered, then slow-gulping the first half before nodding. “You’re lucky,” he said. “Could have been in Paris. Could have been in fucking Afghanistan, for that matter. But the guy you’re looking for is up north.”
“Address.”
“You think I memorized it? Give me a break. It’s going to take a minute.”
“We’ll wait.”
“You’ll fucking wait out there, McCallister. And this info pays all debts, you understand? I never want to see you again.”
Patrick nodded, and Bryn slid out of the booth.
He didn’t. He asked, in a very different, almost gentle tone of voice, “How is he?”
There was a heavy silence, and then Brent said, “Don’t know. My boy doesn’t talk to me. He’s alive, though. Alive and well. Got married, I hear. Probably got some kids he won’t tell me about until I’m too feeble to care. If you ever see him, tell him—” Brent went silent for a second, face set in a blank mask, and then continued, “Hell. Just tell him you saw me and I asked after him. That’ll do.”
Patrick nodded assent, and got out of the booth. He pulled the curtain behind him and walked Bryn to the bar, where he ordered them both drinks and paid the tab.
“Who the hell is he?” she asked, as her tequila shot was deposited on the bar in front of her.
“One tough, slippery son of a bitch,” Patrick said. “Could have been a general if he’d kept his mouth shut, but he isn’t built that way. These days, he runs people like Brick, and a lot of other shit that isn’t so nice. You want things done, no matter how messy, you find Brent.”
“And he seems like such a nice guy.”
Patrick snorted in amusement, then took a long sip of his scotch. “I liked his son.”
“And you saved his life?”
“He took some pretty bad hits. I got him to cover and did first aid until they could evac him. Head injury. I never saw him again, but he wrote to me, after. Told me they’d discharged him and he was doing better. Considering they didn’t think he’d make it off the battlefield, I thought that was a pretty good outcome.”
There was a but in there, she sensed. “And?”
He drank the rest of the scotch in a rush. “He lost both his legs.”
She nodded. She knew plenty of guys like that—legs or arms blown off, replaced by impressively crafted replacements. “Lucky,” she said.
“Let’s hope we are, too.”
The curtain on Brent’s booth slid open, and the man beckoned to them. Bryn swallowed her tequila before she went and nodded to the bartender, who nodded back, cautiously polite this time.
“Don’t sit,” Brent said when they came to the booth. “Here. Take it and get out. I don’t know what you’re into, and I don’t want to know.” He slid a folded piece of paper across the table, and Bryn took it. Their fingers touched, and the man drew back fast.
“Brent,” Patrick said. “I can’t lie. There could be blowback from this. Watch your ass.”
That made the older man—Bryn couldn’t think of him as old, even though objectively he probably was—laugh. It sounded like a gravel crusher loaded with broken glass. “Son,” he said. “You think I do anything but? Fuck off. I’m done.” He slid the curtain closed with a brisk whip of his wrist, and Bryn unfolded the paper. On it was a two-line address. The city was Paradise, California.
Ironic.
As they walked away from the bar, she looked over at Patrick and said, “How do you know he won’t turn around and sell us out?”
“He won’t,” Patrick said. “He may be a hard bastard, but he’s loyal. And like it or not, he did owe me. He’ll die before he tells them a damn thing.”
She hoped he was right.
Chapter 11
San Francisco was about an hour away, but they only skirted it; in Oakland, they found a long-term parking garage thanks to Google, which was exactly what they needed. The place was staffed, but with lackluster, disinterested employees who were just holding space until it was time to clock out. No problem to shop the available selection and choose the best without anyone noticing, especially since Patrick spotted and disabled the cameras first.
Then it was just a matter of waiting until the attendant went for a restroom break, then picking the lock on the booth to retrieve the key, conveniently labeled by space number. Patrick even logged the car out on the computer, since the attendant had left it running without password protection, and they’d started it and driven off the lot before he ever made it back.
Patrick even put the cameras back into working order on the way out. With even average luck, they had a clean car, one the police wouldn’t flag for days, maybe even months.
Plus, it was a pretty sweet ride . . . some kind of BMW, one of the luxury models with all the bells and whistles. Patrick tried to take the first shift driving, but Bryn sensibly pointed out that he was still healing, and she wasn’t, so a nap would do him good. In true military fashion, he took about two minutes to sack out in the embrace of the butter-soft leather upholstery. Driving in Cali wasn’t exactly a hardship, and Bryn enjoyed feeling in control, for once—even in a minor way, by controlling speed and direction of her forward motion. And this time, there was forward motion. A Fountain Group member, on their radar. Finally.