G. Moffat - Blindside

‘You should. She’d want to know.’

‘You’re right. Why don’t you go home to get packed. Pick up Ellie and tell her what’s going on. I’ll call Melanie.’

‘The dream team,’ Logan said, following Cahill out of the room.

He glanced back at the shredded target. Hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

After Logan left the warehouse, Cahill went to call Melanie Stark from another room in the building — a functional meeting space with a round table and six chairs.

It was still early in Kansas, but Cahill figured that she wouldn’t be sleeping much.

Turned out he was right.

‘How are you holding up?’ he asked, when she answered the call.

‘Ask me again in six months.’

He thought that she sounded a little brighter than she had last night. Which wasn’t saying much.

‘I wanted to let you know that I’m not going to let this go. That I want to help you.’

‘Alex, I appreciate the sentiment, you know. But Tim’s dead. What’s left after that? Whatever we do, he won’t be walking back through the front door, will he?’

‘No. You’re right about that. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t honour his memory.’

‘I don’t mean to be rude, Alex. But that stuff sounds so hollow right now.’

‘I know. Doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.’

She sighed. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Suppose that I agree to let you help me. What are you going to do? And how much will it cost me?’

‘First, it won’t cost anything. I don’t charge friends for helping them out.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.’

‘No need to apologise. It was a perfectly sensible question.’

‘So, what is it that you can do from over there?’

‘Not much. That’s why I’m flying out to Denver tomorrow.’

‘What?’

‘I need to be where it happened.’

‘You organised this before speaking to me.’

She sounded a little angry. Maybe that was good — showing something other than grief or hurt.

‘Yes. I was going to do it anyway. For Tim.’

‘Are you going alone?’

‘No. I’ll have someone with me. Logan — the lawyer you spoke to before.’

‘I don’t expect that the cops or FBI like lawyers much, do they?’

‘They don’t. That’s kind of the point.’

She made a noise. Cahill wasn’t sure if it was a sniff or the best attempt at a laugh that she could manage right now.

‘I’ll speak to the cops and the FBI and anyone else who I think will help. Or might be trying to hide something. In my experience, if you stir up enough people it usually gets results in the end.’

‘Will this come back at me? I mean, will they-’

‘I’ll make sure it doesn’t.’

‘Thanks. I guess. Though I’m not sure what it is that you’re going to find. Maybe I don’t want to hear it. Have you considered that?’

‘I won’t tell you if you don’t want me to.’

‘No. I mean, I want to hear it. Good or bad.’

‘It won’t be bad.’

‘I appreciate your confidence.’

‘Listen, there’s something that you can do to help me.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Can you go through all of Tim’s stuff: clothes, bags, papers, computer. Everything. Look for anything that’s unfamiliar to you. It might be something that you wouldn’t ordinarily notice. Just a scribble on a piece of paper or a phone number you don’t recognise. If it’s there, you’ll know it when you see it.’

‘I’ll do that today.’

‘I’ll call you when I get in to Denver.’

She paused.

‘Is this how you all are?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know. Soldiers and cops and people in the Service.’

‘I suppose. The bond you have with someone you’ve stood beside and risked your life with is different from any other.’

‘Even that with your own family? Your children?’

‘Yes. I’m not saying it’s stronger, because it’s not. Just different.’

‘Well… thanks. I think Tim would have done the same for you.’

‘I have no doubt.’

‘Take care, Alex. I don’t want you to… you know. To get hurt for this.’

‘Don’t worry about me.’

Cahill drove back to the city centre, parked under the office building and went up to find Tom Hardy in his own room. Hardy was on a call with a client so Cahill waited until he finished before speaking.

‘Tom, I’m going to Denver tomorrow with Logan. I’ll be gone for three days at least. Maybe more.’

‘As long as it takes?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I can’t talk you out of this?’

‘You know me better than that.’

Hardy nodded. ‘You need anything else from me?’ he asked.

‘I’ll need a contact over there.’

Meaning: someone who can supply a weapon.

‘Of course. Can’t go walking around naked.’

‘Do you know anyone?’ Cahill asked.

‘No. But I can find someone. Don’t sweat it.’

‘Nothing fancy, Tom, you know?’

Translation: a handgun.

‘I hear you. Watch your back.’

Seth Raines drove his pick-up truck west towards the Rocky Mountains with a man in the passenger seat beside him. They cleared the city limits and moved on to I-70 quickly in light traffic, the sun rising into a clear, blue sky. Raines reached into the door pocket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses, unfolding the arms with one hand while watching the road as it rose into the mountains. There had been a light snowfall in the mountains the night before and the sun sparkled in the fresh, crystalline snow.

The road continued to climb up, snow-capped peaks high above them. It twisted through a pass before rising again into the town of Grant. As they passed through the town, Raines turned west again and, after about a mile and a half, pulled on to a track that wound up through dense woodland to a high clearing. This high up, snow covered the track and crunched under the wheels of his truck. A short distance along the track they came to a tall, metal gate. Raines stopped his truck next to a pole with a speaker on top and said his name, his breath visible in the sharp morning air.

‘Come on up,’ a voice answered as a buzzing sounded and the gates swung slowly open.

They reached a clearing after another mile of the snow-covered track. There were three wooden structures built just behind the tree line at the northern edge of the clearing. Two men in green camo jackets and jeans stepped down off the porch of the middle building, the largest of the three, and walked towards the truck as Raines stopped. The men were carrying assault rifles and wore ballistic vests over their jackets.

Raines and his passenger got out.

‘Heard about Stark,’ one of the men said to Raines. ‘Bad business.’

‘We stick to what we’re doing,’ Raines said. ‘What happens is what happens.’

‘Sure thing, boss.’

Raines’s passenger sensed something more than respect emanate from the man to whom Raines had spoken. Something like fear.

Raines nodded at the man and walked on, his passenger following behind and staring at the dark tips of the tattoos on Raines’s neck. They mounted the steps of the middle building where Raines stopped, turning to his passenger.

‘Those are sealed,’ he said, indicating the other two buildings.

The passenger looked left and right, noticing now that the other buildings had no external windows. Only heavy steel access doors broke up the otherwise featureless wooden exteriors.

‘The wood is just cladding,’ Raines went on. ‘An external shell to cover the actual building construction.’