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  ‘Andy?’ Grange asked.

  ‘Andy Johnson.’

  Grange flipped through the file in front of him on the table.

  ‘The Scottish RMP corporal?’

  ‘Yes. He wasn’t the same after he got shot. Losing part of your skull will do that.’

  ‘I’m not following,’ Webb said. ‘Johnson is dead now?’

  Horn nodded.

  ‘Take it back a step and tell us what’s going on,’ Webb said.

  ‘I needed money for treatment and Seth didn’t have it. Andy had been back in Afghanistan working private security after the army discharged him. He made some contacts over there – through another soldier, guy called Jack Butler. Drug contacts. Heroin. Saw a way to make some money. Seth told him no the first time he mentioned it. But he got so desperate, so angry at everyone and everything, that he would have done anything.’

  ‘For you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  Horn cleared his throat.

  ‘He had a son. He died when he was real young and Seth split from his wife after it. I don’t think he ever recovered from it. He saw me as a replacement.’

  ‘He told you that.’

  ‘Not in so many words.’

  ‘Which is why you getting sick …’

  ‘I nearly died. Technically I was dead for a minute or so before they revived me.’

  Webb sat back again, looked over at Hunter.

  ‘You have any questions, Detective?’

  Horn looked at Hunter.

  ‘You said that you killed them,’ Hunter said. ‘What did you mean by that?’

  ‘I’m a chemist. I came up with the idea of mixing the heroin and fentanyl. I wanted to be useful. Didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Seth and Andy. That’s not a good place to be.’

  ‘But you didn’t get it right.’

  ‘Actually I did. I knew what I was doing.’

  Hunter frowned.

  ‘I don’t understand. If you got it right, why are people dying?’

  ‘I changed it. Didn’t tell Seth.’

  ‘You wanted people to die?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Horn showed no emotion now. As though he had stamped it down to where he couldn’t feel it any longer.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So that it would stop. So that we would get caught.’

  ‘Why did you want to get caught?’

  ‘The Mexicans.’

  Hunter was starting to see it all fit together now.

  ‘They were going to take you out,’ Hunter said. ‘For muscling in on their trade?’

  Horn smiled, but not like it was funny.

  ‘No, not like that. They wanted to buy us out. It appealed to them mainly because they would have a manufacturing facility right here inside the US border. They wanted to flood the market.’

  ‘Would certainly avoid the need to get the product across the border.’

  ‘Exactly. And they were soldiers too. Or at least the guy we dealt with was.’

  ‘Brothers in arms crap,’ Grange said.

  Horn shrugged.

  ‘This is still my country and I couldn’t sit by and let it happen.’

  ‘One thing I don’t understand,’ Hunter said. ‘Where does Johnson fit into this?’

  Horn made a face like he thought it was a dumb question.

  ‘He ran the UK operation. Or at least he did before Seth found out he was taking half the profits for himself. Seth told Butler to kill him.’

  Webb looked at Hunter who put his palms up indicating he was done asking questions for now.

  ‘So, Matt,’ Webb said. ‘What was this all about? I mean, why raising all this money? Are you planning to attack your own country?’

  Horn frowned and shook his head.

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  He laughed.

  ‘What?’ Grange asked.

  ‘It started off because we were all broke and desperate. After that, they got used to the money. That’s all it was. That’s why they’re selling out to the Mexicans. We’re getting five million dollars in cash.’

  ‘This is all just about money?’

  ‘Is there anything else?’

  Grange sat back in his seat looking disgusted.

  ‘So, Matt, what is it that you want from us?’ Webb asked.

  Always the pragmatist.

  ‘To stop it. All of it. I thought I said that already.’

  ‘But you want a deal. Immunity. For helping us. Am I right?’

  ‘Whatever. I don’t care any more what happens to me. Just stop it.’

  ‘How do we do that?’

  ‘I’m meeting Seth tomorrow morning in town for breakfast. I’ll tell you where and when and you can pick him up with minimum fuss. And I’ll tell you who the others are and where we make the stuff. It’s up in the mountains.’

  ‘You’ll give us everything?’

  ‘Sure. I mean, if you want it.’

  There was a knock at the door. Grange stood and pulled it open. Cahill was there with Logan.

  ‘Uh, there’s a detective in Scotland that you guys might want to talk to,’ Cahill said.

  3

  Detective Superintendent Liam Moore was a creature of habit. He liked being a Super. It meant that he didn’t have to do the legwork any longer. He could work a solid nine to six most days and leave the late nights to his team. He’d put his shift in when he was younger. He was respected and maybe a little feared. Fear was a good thing for a boss to instil in his team.

  Which is why when his wife shook him awake in the middle of the night and stuck the phone on his ear he was not happy. He was less happy when he heard DC Irvine’s voice.

  She was such a hard charger. Which was good. And bad.

  Bad like now.

  ‘Sir, I’m sorry to wake you but—’

  ‘Get to the point.’

  ‘I have a situation with this drug case.’

  A situation. This didn’t sound good. Not one little bit.

  ‘The thing is, the stuff here looks like it might be the other end of a bigger operation. Run out of Colorado.’

  ‘The Colorado in America?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did this come up?’

  ‘It’s kind of a long story.’

  ‘Can’t you just tell me?’

  ‘The FBI are involved.’

  Moore sat up in bed, pulling the covers off his wife and causing her to grunt at him.

  ‘Have you spoken to the SCDEA about this?’

  ‘No. I only just found out.’

  Moore looked at the clock by his bed. Whatever time it was, and he wasn’t quite sure, it was too early.

  ‘The FBI are meeting about it right now.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘Uh …’

  Moore waited.

  ‘That’s part of the long story, sir.’

  ‘Becky, just tell me, okay? I’m going to find out eventually.’

  She told him.

  ‘We’re not doing anything about this right now,’ he said when she finished.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘It’s the middle of the night and it sounds like the Yanks have their end of things under control.’

  ‘What about ours?’

  ‘We can do it better in the morning. I mean, the real morning. When normal people are awake.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we at least make contact with the FBI? I mean, like, now.’

  ‘No. I want the SCDEA on board first.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No. Meet me at the office at seven-thirty. Then we’ll work out what to do.’

  He didn’t wait for a reply.

  4

  Cooper Grange glared at Logan and came back to his seat, Logan thinking: What did I do?

  ‘Have you been holding back any other information?’ Grange asked Cahill.

  ‘Were you not listening?’ Logan replied. ‘We only just found out.’

  ‘That’s what you
say.’

  ‘What? You think there’s some conspiracy of silence?’

  Grange leaned forward to speak again but Webb held up a hand, cutting him off.

  ‘The important thing,’ Webb said, ‘is that we have the information now. We’ve got an opportunity to break up an international operation so we need to make sure we’re all on the same page as to where we go from here. If one of us goes too soon it might tip them off.’

  Logan nodded.

  ‘Can you call over there now?’ Webb asked. ‘So we can make some kind of contact.’

  Logan picked up his mobile to dial.

  ‘No,’ Webb said, pushing the conference phone on the table over to Logan. ‘Use that. The speaker will be much better than on your cell.’

  ‘Hello?’ Irvine’s voice sounded hesitant when she answered the call.

  ‘Becky, it’s me again,’ Logan said.

  ‘Hi, listen—’

  ‘I’m with the police and FBI agents here in Denver.’

  ‘Detective Irvine, this is Special Agent Randall Webb of the FBI. I head up the Denver field office.’

  ‘What can I do for you, Agent Webb?’

  ‘Mr Finch has explained the connection between our investigations and I thought it would be appropriate if we co-ordinated our activities.’

  ‘I agree. But the drug investigation isn’t my thing. I mean, I’m just helping out over here.’

  ‘I see. What do you suggest, then?’

  ‘I’m going to head into the office now. My boss, Liam Moore, wants me to brief him and then we’ll talk to the SCDEA. The drug squad.’

  ‘I should probably speak with Detective Moore.’

  ‘Detective Superintendent. Yes.’

  Webb looked at his watch.

  ‘It’s early for you, Detective Irvine. When should we arrange to speak?’

  ‘If it’s early for me, it’s late for you.’

  ‘We work as long as we have to. As I’m sure you do.’

  ‘Of course. I’m going to get ready and go see my boss. Can I speak to him first and call you back to set something up? We need the SCDEA to be in on the call as well.’

  ‘Of course. We’ve got, ah, other things to occupy ourselves with in the meantime. Speak soon, Detective.’

  The room was quiet after the call. Webb sat back in his seat and looked at Hunter and Collins and then across the table at Logan and Cahill.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask both of you to leave again,’ he said, fixing his gaze on Cahill. ‘You understand.’

  Logan knew for sure that Cahill would not understand. He waited for his friend’s retort.

  ‘I mean,’ Webb continued, ‘we have an operation to plan for first thing tomorrow morning and we don’t have much time.’

  Cahill stood and Logan thought that, for the first time, his friend was going to go quietly. He started to get up and felt Cahill’s hand on his shoulder pressing him back down into his seat.

  So much for that thought.

  ‘You’re going after a soldier, am I right?’ Cahill asked Webb.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Do any of you have military training or experience?’

  No one answered.

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘We don’t need military training to plan an arrest operation in town,’ Grange said. ‘We do this all the time.’

  ‘I’m sure you do. I wasn’t offering tactical advice.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I can tell you how he thinks. What he’ll be looking out for. What he might do if he thinks something is up. So that it goes down as smooth as possible. I mean, that’s what we all want, isn’t it?’

  ‘What exactly are you saying, Mr Cahill?’ Webb asked.

  ‘Keep me in the loop on this. I’ll help you get inside this guy’s brain.’

  ‘Sort of like a consultant?’

  ‘Whatever you want to call it.’

  ‘I can see how that might be useful.’

  Cahill grinned.

  5

  Friday

  There was no record of any current address for Jack Butler that Irvine could find. She checked all available sources but nothing turned up. She was alone in the office at Pitt Street at seven with only her desk lamp and light from her computer monitor illuminating the place.

  She didn’t want to wait for Moore to arrive before giving Armstrong the heads-up about Johnson’s death, Butler and the Colorado connection. It didn’t matter how they had left things yesterday, he deserved to know what was going on.

  Except maybe Frank Parker’s late-night house call. That might not go down so well with him.

  Armstrong sounded wide awake when she called his mobile.

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked.

  ‘At home.’

  Sounded like he was still pissed off.

  ‘I need you to get to Pitt Street now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘New lead. Something big. You should get the DG here as well. He’ll want to be in on it.’

  She knew that would get him interested.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t have time to get into it right now. I’ve got to speak to the Super.’

  ‘What time do you want us there?’

  ‘Soon as.’

  ‘I’ll call the DG. This better be worth it.’

  ‘It is.’

  Liam Moore arrived at the office fifteen minutes later. He was still taking his jacket off when Irvine came into his room.

  ‘I called Armstrong,’ she said. ‘The SCDEA guy. He’s going to come in with the DG.’

  ‘You work fast. As always.’

  ‘I thought, you know, it was the right thing to do.’

  ‘It was. When will they be here?’

  ‘As long as it takes to get organised and drive over.’

  ‘Okay. I suppose you’d better bring me up to speed on everything before they get here.’

  Irvine nodded, walked to the chair across the desk from Moore and sat down. She had her file and put it on the desk. It was overflowing with new material so she ordered it as best she could and told him what she knew.

  She did the same thing for Armstrong and the DG, Paul Warren, half an hour later.

  When she was done, Warren looked at Moore before he spoke.

  ‘It’s just the one guy running things here?’ he asked Irvine.

  ‘So far as I’m aware, sir, it is now. But the FBI may know more.’

  ‘Do we have an address on him?’

  ‘No. But I’ve got this.’ Irvine took copies of a photograph of Butler from her file and passed them around.

  ‘I got this from the MOD this morning. It’s maybe four or five years out of date but it’s the best I could do.’

  ‘Priority number one has to be getting this guy in custody,’ Moore said. ‘Are we agreed?’

  Warren nodded.

  ‘We can’t have him running around out there killing everyone who can identify him. It’s bad enough already. The last thing we need is more bodies piling up.’

  ‘What should we do?’ Irvine asked.

  Moore pointed at the file in her lap.

  ‘Go through everything on him. I mean, service history, family, previous addresses. Everything. Run down every lead. If you need more bodies to do it, let me know. I’ll authorise the manpower for it.

  ‘Do you want me to speak to press relations?’ Irvine asked. ‘You know, to get his name and picture out there?’

  Moore leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head. ‘What do you think?’ he asked Warren.

  ‘My inclination is not to do it. Not just yet anyway. I mean, if he sees it, he might go right off the deep end. Could be a bloodbath.’

  Moore nodded.

  ‘Isn’t it a bit late for that?’ Armstrong said. ‘Look at what he did to Johnson, to Russell Hall and the accountants. How much worse is it going to get?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Moore said. ‘That’s the problem. We hav
e no idea how many more people he’s likely to target. So let’s not give him a reason.’

  ‘Who’s going to speak to the FBI?’ Irvine asked.

  ‘I’ll handle that,’ Warren said. ‘Can you give me the names of the agents over there?’

  Irvine nodded.

  ‘Okay, people,’ Moore said. ‘Let’s get to work and get this bastard locked up.’

  6

  Irvine went back to her desk and shuffled through her file again. She focused on what little information she had on Butler, but it was insubstantial and led nowhere, no matter how many times she went over it. The guy was a ghost.

  She went back through the file one last time from the start. After ten minutes she came across the handwritten sheet of notes she had made when trying to get her head around the case earlier in the week. One line jumped out at her:

  Suzie Murray – is she lying + does she know the dealer?

  It wasn’t so much the content of the note, but the thought process that it triggered: about working girls and where they lived. She picked up her desk phone and called the Stewart Street police station.

  ‘Stewart Street,’ a male voice answered.

  ‘Superintendent Pope, please,’ Irvine said.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘DC Irvine with CID.’

  ‘Hold on.’

  She did. A minute stretched to two, stretched to three.

  ‘Pope,’ a voice said.

  ‘Sir, it’s DC Irvine from Pitt Street.’

  ‘I know. What’s this about?’

  ‘We spoke earlier this week. About a murder inquiry.’

  The line went quiet. Irvine heard Pope breathing but he said nothing.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Is this about the prozzies?’

  ‘That’s correct, sir.’

  ‘You wanted information on other girls, that kind of thing. Connected to your stiff.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She heard the sound of papers shuffled on a desk.

  ‘Two names and an address,’ Pope said after a little more shuffling.

  Irvine wrote down the names he gave her and the address of a flat in the east end of the city, not far from where Russell Hall’s body had been found. She wanted to ask how long Pope had been sitting on the information, bit her tongue instead and thanked him. He hung up without replying.