Jeff Abbott - Trust Me

You’re not that important, he told himself. And that is your strength. If they’d realized you were important maybe you’d still be with State. Maybe you’d be where you started, on the side of the angels.

Then the little stinger of his conscience: if you had been treated as important, then none of this would have happened.

‘I need to speak with him alone.’

‘I’ll take a walk,’ said the young Alabama man who’d delivered Bridger. He strolled off into the darkness. Henry dragged Bridger out of the trunk, propped him against the car’s bumper. He still wore the leather jacket with its emblazoned eagle.

‘I’ve had a very bad day,’ Henry said. ‘You know, in my business, I have to email out position papers on policy and theory to some of the most powerful people in the world.’

Bridger stared.

‘I’ve warned my clients about all sorts of impending attacks today: a follow-up on the chlorine bombing, an assault on our fuel supplies, a rise in neo-Nazi hatred. Everything I’ve predicted is coming true.’

Bridger moaned behind the gag.

‘I’ve had violence on my mind, Bridger. And you know, thinking about violence can make one more violent. That’s unlucky for you.’

Bridger’s eyes widened with terror.

Henry unwrapped the gag, let the fabric fall from Bridger’s mouth and he screamed for help.

‘No one can hear you,’ Henry said. ‘God, that feels good to say that. You’re the best part of my day, Bridger.’

Bridger, to Henry’s disgust, started to cry.

‘Your mouth is what’s gotten you in trouble.’

‘I didn’t do nothing, honest.’

‘You didn’t do anything because your Quicksilver contact got killed before you could sell us out.’

‘No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You’re on the Houston traffic intersection tape we accessed, son.’

‘It ain’t me, it ain’t me.’ He was not a brave man, in any sense of the word, and his stark fear shuddered off him in waves, as though it had its own energy his skin could not contain.

‘It’s you. Even if we hadn’t pulled your face off the tape your extremely bad-ass leather jacket with the embroidered eagle on the back is too tasteful and refined to belong to anyone but you, Bridger.’

Bridger hung his head.

‘You’ve broken Snow’s heart.’

‘She… you don’t need to hurt her.’

‘I don’t blame her for your betrayal. Plus, she’s useful. She’s already found a guy to fill your shoes and to warm her bed.’ Henry’s smile shifted. ‘When you don’t amount to much, it’s easy to replace you.’ He smiled to himself. He knew this truth. Warren Dantry hadn’t been much of a father or husband, in Henry’s eyes, and he’d slipped into Warren’s life with an astonishing ease.

‘Now. We can be friends again, and the Night Road can forgive you.’ Henry squatted on the cool grass next to him. ‘If you tell me who Quicksilver is.’

‘I don’t know that name.’

‘The man you were meeting works for a company called Quicksilver. Who are they?’

‘I don’t know. They said…’ and Bridger stopped as though searching for words.

Henry reached over to him, found a finger. And broke it, with a clean snap. Drummond had taught him the technique, years ago, for self-defense.

Bridger howled, kicked a muddy trench in the grass, knocked his shoulders and head hard against the bumper. When he could speak coherent words again he begged, ‘Don’t, don’t, no!’

‘You have nine more. One minute to change your mind, and I crack another.’ He let the pain sink in, let the horror rise in Bridger.

Bridger clenched his teeth.

‘I mean, do you think Quicksilver’s going to charge through the woods and rescue you? I think not. I’m your only hope for mercy and kindness, Bridger. We can forgive you. We can hide you. But not if you don’t help us.’

The minute passed, the only sound Bridger’s clenched moans. He was nothing more than a loser, a guy who’d drifted from one racist extremist group to another across the South, usually doing no more than building their websites and waving a placard during poorly attended demonstrations. He’d met Snow five months ago and they’d moved in together; he had an interest in learning how to build bombs, but no skill, and he’d been demoted to solely being the guy in charge of fetching her supplies.

Gently, Henry reached for the next finger, caressed it from nail to joint, and before he could break it, a desperate spill of words came from Bridger’s throat:

‘I got a call on my cell phone. From this man.’

‘What was his name?’

‘He didn’t give it. He said, real blunt, that he knew I had acquired bomb gear for Snow. That if I didn’t want to go to prison for the rest of my life, I needed to cooperate.’ Bridger swallowed.

But how had Allen Clifford known about Snow in the first place? Henry wondered. And the answer was clear: we have a spy inside the Night Road.

‘The guy said they’d pay me, they’d hide me, make sure I didn’t go to prison. If I just gave everything I knew to him, he’d come meet me in Houston.’

‘How did you know about what Snow was working on?’

‘I heard Snow talking to you.’ He shook his head in shame.

‘You were spying on her.’

‘I knew she made a few simple bombs, for people to pick up and use. A guy from Minnesota, a guy from Missouri, a bunch of hippies from Seattle. But then she was working on a huge number of bombs, for days and days.’ Bridger bit his lip. ‘So I thought, I’ll go meet this dude, then I was gonna capture him and bring him back to you. So we could know who the enemy was, you know. I’m on your side.’

‘We? You’re not part of us. You’re not smart enough to be one of us.’ Henry broke another finger and Bridger vomited onto his own lap. ‘That’s for lying and not even being good at it.’

Bridger howled and cried and spat a green rope of spit onto the floor. ‘I thought I’d… prove I was useful to you.’ His voice sank into a quicksand of pathetic whining. ‘I ain’t a traitor.’

‘Then prove it. Tell me everything and I’ll let you call Snow and you can apologize to her.’

‘So I agreed. The guy said he’d meet me in downtown Houston. I wanted it on the streets in case it was a trap. So I could run.’ As though a trap couldn’t be sprung on Bridger in the streets of Houston, as it clearly had been, and one of Jane’s own design. ‘Told him he had to dress like a homeless man, throw me a hand signal that all was clear.’

‘And the point of this meeting?’

‘I’d tell him everything I knew about Snow and the bombs. I knew about the website she goes on, to talk to folks around the world, you know, people like us. How to access the website, what Snow was planning. Give ’em any names. I only knew yours and Snow’s.’

‘And Clifford – that’s the man’s name, by the way – would give you what?’

‘Protection. A fresh start overseas. I thought I’d go to Sweden or Iceland or one of those countries that’s nearly all white folks. That’s just what I told him. Of course my plan was to capture him, bring him back to Snow so y’all could question him.’

‘Of course. Did he know about Hellfire? About the members of the Night Road?’

For a second it looked like Bridger was giving the matter serious thought, as much as his lax brain could summon. Then he shook his head. ‘He knew something big might be coming. He didn’t know what specifically, I don’t think.’

‘Thank you, Bridger. I’d like to know if Clifford mentioned my name.’

‘No.’

‘Did he mention Luke Dantry?’

‘No.’

‘Did he ever suggest that he was part of a police or government agency?’