2
Cahill left the hotel room after seven on Thursday morning with Logan still asleep. He went down to the bar area and sat by the window before calling Tom Hardy. It was mid-afternoon back in the UK.
‘Tom, it’s me. I’m going to need to visit that contact you were arranging over here.’
The gun.
‘Sure. Want me to e-mail you the details?’
‘Yeah. You got it now?’
‘I do. I’ll hang up and send it.’
‘Who is he?’
‘She. It’s a woman.’
‘How do we know her? I mean, what’s her background?’
‘I didn’t enquire. She runs a legit gun shop. Does a sideline for those in need of something untraceable. I’m told that she is very careful to ensure that it’s only those with right on their side that she deals with.’
Cahill smiled.
‘Use my name,’ Hardy said. ‘That’ll be good enough.’
Cahill took a taxi to a suburb in the predominantly white South Denver area. The city was like a lot of the big metropolitan centres in the US – the neighbourhoods were divided largely by race. In Denver it was African Americans in the east, Hispanics on the north and west sides and whites in the south. There were always exceptions and, as the cab drew up on the opposite side of the street from the gun shop, Cahill saw a black woman behind the counter. It was eight-thirty and the shop was already open.
He got out of the cab and spent a little time checking out the area. It was unremarkable. Neither particularly affluent nor poor, and the houses were clean and tidy with small, well-kept front yards. It was a good place for wanting to go unnoticed.
Cahill walked across the street and went into the shop, a bell above his head ringing as he pushed the front door open. The woman behind the counter looked over at him and smiled. She was serving a man in a checked shirt wearing a Broncos cap.
‘Be with you in a minute,’ she said to him in a Boston accent – all elongated vowels. ‘Have a look around.’
Cahill nodded and said he would. He didn’t know if she recognised him as one of her other customers.
He walked around the small shop, marvelling again, now that he was home, at the availability of such destructive weapons to members of the public and seeing posters advertising gun clubs and shooting ranges. He was a trained soldier and knew how to use these things, but any idiot could walk in here and buy one if they checked out okay.
Cahill was at the back of the shop when he heard the bell ring again as the other customer left. He walked over to the counter and smiled at the woman, offering his hand in greeting. She shook it.
‘I’m Elizabeth Holmes. Call me Lizzie. What can I do for you?’
She had a firm handshake and wore a white T-shirt with a Smith & Wesson logo. Cahill could see the slender, well-toned muscles of her forearm as she shook his hand. Her hair was short and she had wide-set brown eyes. He made her for late forties.
‘Tom Hardy said I should come see you if I was in town,’ Cahill said.
She held his hand a moment longer then released it, putting both her hands on her hips. It was a girlish pose, but she pulled it off.
‘I’m always happy to meet new friends,’ she said.
‘Likewise.’
‘You an ex-cop or what?’
‘Army then Secret Service.’
‘You get around. What you up to now?’
Getting to know you.
‘Close protection. Corporates, politicians. That kind of thing, you know.’
Her eyes opened wider. ‘Any celebrities?’
‘Sometimes. I mean, try to avoid them.’
‘Very sensible. Bet they pay well, though.’
‘That they do, Lizzie.’
She looked at him for a moment and walked around the counter, heading for the front door.
‘Give me a second to close up and I’ll take you downstairs.’
She turned a lock on the door and put a sign in the window telling her customers that she’d be back in a half-hour.
‘Follow me,’ she said as she went towards a door at the back of the counter area.
He went through the door behind her and down a narrow set of stairs. There was another door at the bottom with three heavy-duty locks which she opened. The door swung inwards and Cahill could tell from the way she held it that it was armoured – the wood fascia intended as a disguise.
He walked past her into a large, well-lit basement. It was a workshop with a couple of long benches and shelving racks on two walls. There was a large metal cabinet on one of the other walls.
‘What’s your story?’ Cahill asked as she picked a key from a chain attached to the belt of her jeans.
She looked back at him from over her shoulder.
‘Boston PD. Twenty years.’
‘Why this now? Why Denver?’
She shrugged. ‘Why not?’
Cahill walked over to the cabinet as she opened it, displaying a number of handguns arranged on metal pins. There were two shelves at the bottom filled with boxes of ammunition.
‘Before we go any further,’ she said, turning to him and putting a hand firmly on his chest, ‘I know that you’ve been vouched for, but what’s your intention with my stuff?’
‘Defensive only.’
She looked hard at his eyes.
‘Okay, soldier. I had to ask, you know.’
It came out like: Okay, Soul-jah. Hadda ask, y’know.
Cahill nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘What are you after?’
Wotcha ahftah.
‘Something reliable, like a Glock.’
‘I got plenty of them bad boys. Take your pick.’
Cahill looked at the guns and pointed to the one he wanted. She told him to go ahead and he lifted it from its mount and checked it out.
‘Good for you?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘It’ll do.’
He reached down and grabbed an identical weapon.
‘And this,’ Cahill said. ‘Just, you know …’
She nodded. ‘Can never be too careful. Ammo?’
She was Cahill’s kind of person. Direct. No words wasted.
He paid cash and took a box of bullets and two nylon holsters to go with the weapons. When they were done, she led him back up the stairs and into the main part of the shop.
‘You be careful out there, soldier,’ she told him as she unlocked the front door. ‘Bad people around, you know.’