7
‘I think they let us in on the bare minimum to keep us happy,’ Logan told Cahill as they rode the elevator down from the eighteenth floor at close to midnight.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Allowing us to sit in on the preliminary stuff and then telling us to get lost when they were going to have the call with the cops back home.’
‘You’re probably right.’
Logan was surprised that Cahill was so calm.
‘That doesn’t piss you off?’
Cahill turned to him, flicked his eyes above and to his left and said ‘no’. Logan looked in the same direction quickly and saw a camera in the corner of the elevator car. He said nothing else until they were in the car and driving back to their hotel.
‘What’s going on?’ Logan asked.
‘I got everything that I needed from those guys already.’
Logan concentrated on the junction ahead, the traffic system still feeling alien to him. After safely negotiating a left turn, he glanced at Cahill.
‘Alex, this is serious stuff and we need to back off now. Leave it to the FBI.’
‘Like at Ruby Ridge? Or Waco?’
Logan had never heard of Ruby Ridge and thought that WACO was an ATF operation so far as he could remember. Not that it mattered.
‘So what? This isn’t our fight. We got to the truth about your friend. Let’s go home.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Can’t you let it go for once?’
Cahill said nothing. Didn’t look at Logan.
‘What is it with you and this thing?’ Logan asked, almost shouting now.
Cahill sighed.
‘It’s just me.’
‘What does that even mean?’ Logan said, pulling the car to a stop at the side of the road.
Cahill turned in the passenger seat to face Logan. In the harsh light from the streetlamps outside he looked older to Logan than he had before. The lines on his face more prominent. A roadmap of his life in service.
‘What I mean is, it’s who I am. I don’t back away from anything. I never will.’
Logan held his friend’s gaze.
‘A good man died. Maybe not directly at the hands of this Raines and his crew, but close enough. And not just a good man, but someone who put his life on the line for others and for his country. Who served with me. If it had come down to it, we would have died together defending what we believed in.’
‘But …’
‘And I know that Webb and Grange and Hunter and the others are the same. But that doesn’t matter to me. It’s personal for me. And that means that I can’t let it go.’
Logan twisted his hands over the steering wheel.
‘You’ve been through enough with me now to understand.’
‘I don’t think I’ll ever understand, Alex. I guess we’re just built different.’
‘If I ask you to stay in this with me, to cover my back, will you do it?’
‘You know that I will.’
Cahill put a hand on Logan’s shoulder.
‘Not so different,’ Cahill said.
When they got back to the hotel, Logan called Ellie’s mobile. He knew she would be up, getting ready for school.
‘Hey, Ellie. How’s things there?’
‘Okay. But I miss my own room. I mean, having my own stuff around.’
‘I know. Me too.’
‘When are you coming home?’
‘Soon. Probably tomorrow.’
Assuming I’m not in jail. Or dead.
‘Cool.’
Do kids still say that? he wondered.
‘We’ll do something when I get back, okay. Go out for dinner or whatever.’
‘Shopping?’
He laughed.
‘If you like.’
‘I like.’
‘Okay. Look, it’s late here so I’m going to go to bed now.’
Cahill was watching him when he ended the call.
‘That sounded nice,’ he said.
‘It was.’
‘You miss her.’
‘Of course.’
‘Then make sure you get back to her. That girl needs you.’
‘I’m not quitting on you, if that’s what you’re saying.’
‘I wasn’t saying that. We’ve all got families.’
Nothing bonded one human being to another like blood.
Logan went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. It had been a long day. He dried his face and went back out to the main part of the room. Cahill was sitting at the small table by the window looking at the TV. Logan was sure he wasn’t taking in what was on. There were two handguns on Cahill’s bed, nestled tightly in nylon holsters with a box of bullets beside them.
‘This was your errand?’ he asked. ‘When I went to get the car.’
Cahill looked at him and nodded.
‘Are they legal?’
‘No.’
‘Where did you get them?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘I mean, it wasn’t from a criminal or anything, was it?’
Logan heard how stupid the question sounded even as the words formed in his brain and left his mouth. Wished he could have it back.
Cahill laughed. It sounded genuine, not like he was mocking Logan.
‘Stupid question,’ Logan said.
‘I know what you meant,’ Cahill told him. ‘She’s an ex-cop.’
‘And how did she get into the business of selling illegal weapons?’
Cahill shrugged.
‘She wanted to do some good.’
Logan shook his head and sat on the bed.
‘One of these is mine?’ He picked up one of the holsters and slid the gun out, feeling the weight of it in his hand. ‘And you loaded them already.’
‘Not much use to anyone otherwise.’
Logan put the gun back in its holster and replaced it on the bed.
‘So,’ he said. ‘What’s the plan?’