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  She thought about going over to the address on her own. Remembered the last time she had done that and put her hand against the bruised part of her face. Decided to find Armstrong and go over together.

  Armstrong was still in with Moore. Warren was nowhere to be seen. She stuck her head around the door.

  ‘Kenny,’ she said.

  He turned, slightly startled. She held up the piece of paper with the names and addresses on it.

  ‘I got an address for other girls that Joanna Lewski and Suzie Murray worked with.’

  Armstrong frowned.

  ‘From the Super at Stewart Street. I called him before, remember?’

  ‘He called you back now?’ Armstrong asked, looking at his watch.

  ‘No. I called to chase him.’

  Armstrong turned from her to look at Moore, who said nothing.

  ‘Okay,’ Armstrong said. ‘I need to be in on the call with the FBI in an hour. Then we’ll get over there.’

  Irvine stared at the back of his head after he turned to Moore. She went back to her desk and looked at her computer monitor as the screensaver came on. Someone had been on to her computer and changed it to a topless shot of some Z-list female celebrity.

  She found it kind of funny. Wasn’t sure why.

  Strange days.

  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?’

  8

  ‘Why did you support Hunter when he was pressing Webb to have the SWAT team on standby for this Raines operation tomorrow?’ Logan asked Cahill.

  They were sitting at the table in their room with the TV on mute. The guns were still on the bed.

  ‘You’ve heard that cliché?’ Cahill asked.

  ‘I’m a lawyer. I’ve heard lots. Which one in particular?’

  ‘That failing to prepare—’

  ‘Is preparing to fail. Yeah, I’ve heard that one.’

  ‘Webb said Horn told them that he was meeting Raines alone, right?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘But if Horn’s story is true, he’s been thinking about coming in for a w
hile now. And he deliberately messed up the drug cocktail to draw attention to their operation.’

  ‘You mean killing people? There are other ways.’

  ‘You’re missing the point, Logan.’

  ‘I get your point. I was making a different one. What you mean is that his behaviour might have rung an alarm with Raines. Who obviously isn’t stupid.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘So Raines might be suspicious of Horn now and not tell him everything.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Which means we should be ready for him coming to the meeting with back-up.’

  ‘I knew all that training you’ve been getting wouldn’t go to waste.’

  ‘Trouble is, I don’t think that Webb or Grange were buying into what you were telling them. Why else would the SWAT team be on standby at the police HQ instead of on site?’

  ‘A mixture of institutional arrogance – which is standard for the Feds from what I can gather – and a desire to keep it low key. They figure if Raines doesn’t see an army coming for him his reaction might be less …’

  ‘Extreme?’

  ‘Good word. Yes.’

  ‘What’s your take on that? I mean, Hunter was definitely on your side.’

  ‘According to what you read about that Fed bank robbery job he got caught up in, he’s got reason to be cautious. Every new screw-up by the Feds that gets someone killed demonstrates a certain resistance to anyone’s perspective but their own.’

  ‘I think Grange said no because it was the opposite of what you said.’

  ‘You might be right. Great tactical thinking, huh?’

  Logan smiled, though the knot of tension in his stomach was tightening with each minute that passed. He glanced back at the guns.

  ‘You know, you can still say no,’ Cahill said, seeing the anxiety in Logan’s face. ‘And I’ll go it alone.’

  Logan stood and walked to the window, looking out into the city.

  ‘Tell me what we’re going to do,’ Logan said.

  He turned to Cahill and leaned back against the window sill.

  ‘Webb and Grange will be across the street in the building opposite the diner where Raines will meet Horn. It’s a three-storey residential apartment building. They’ll put the occupants of the second-floor apartment at the front up in a hotel and use that as their forward command post. They’ll have comms links to their agents on the ground and to the SWAT team.’

  ‘Hunter and Collins will be in the diner at separate tables,’ Logan added. ‘Dressed like regular guys getting breakfast before going to work.’

  ‘Correct. There will be two female agents and a male agent in there also posing as the owner and serving staff.’

  ‘No civilians?’

  ‘Never. Too risky.’

  ‘What about ordinary customers. How do they deal with them?’

  ‘Turn them away at the door. Make up some story about why they can’t serve anyone else. Regular people will swallow anything if you say it with enough conviction.’

  ‘We’re regular people.’

  Cahill looked blankly at him.

  ‘Never mind,’ Logan said. ‘So, that’s a total of five law enforcement personnel in the diner and two across the street.’

  ‘Plus Ruiz and Martinez in a car around the corner on Seventeenth Street.’

  ‘And we’re just going to walk right into the middle of this operation and order breakfast.’

  ‘While wearing our illegal weapons.’

  ‘I forgot that part.’

  Logan shook his head.

  ‘The Feds are going to go mental when they see us in there, so how do we get past the first line of defence? I mean, won’t they turn us away as well?’

  ‘They know me well enough by now and won’t risk compromising the operation by getting us out of there.’

  ‘Sounds easy.’

  ‘It’s not. And you stay as far out of harm’s way as possible if Raines decides to light it up, okay.’

  Logan nodded.

  ‘Leave that shit to me.’

  ‘You can count on it.’

  ‘If you have to put him down, though …’

  ‘I’ve done it before.’

  9

  They took Armstrong’s car to the flat in the East End occupied by the two prostitutes Pope had identified. Armstrong drove out of the city centre along Duke Street while Irvine stared at the old photograph of Butler, trying to see something in his eyes to explain everything that he had done. But it was just a digital facsimile of the man: coloured ink arranged by a computer on glossy paper. The more she stared at it, the less real it became. She put the photograph in the door pocket and looked ahead.

  ‘How did it go with the FBI?’ she asked.

  Armstrong glanced at her then back at the road.

  ‘Not much for us to tell them. We don’t have anything to go on with this guy Butler yet.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘They were cagey about giving away too much. All they said was that they were close and planning for an operation.’

  ‘An operation?’

  ‘They didn’t elaborate.’

  ‘We’re co-operating with each other, right?’

  ‘As much as we can at this point. But they’ll want to keep it to themselves.’

  ‘You mean take all the credit.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  They fell into silence again. Irvine checked her watch. It was around nine. She thought that the two prostitutes would likely be asleep after a long night shift. Might be good to catch them a little off guard. Maybe they would say something that ordinarily they would try to hide, whether out of fear or a general mistrust of the police.

  ‘I need to tell you something,’ Irvine said.

  Armstrong didn’t look at her or say anything.

  ‘About how I got Butler’s name.’

  ‘I was wondering.’

  She took a quick breath.

  ‘Frank Parker told me.’

  She saw his fingers tighten on the steering wheel, the skin stretching and turning white.

  ‘He came to my house last night.’

  This time Armstrong turned to look at her. There was something hard in his eyes.

  ‘There was nothing to it,’ Irvine said quickly. ‘He wanted to give me information.’

  ‘Such a gentleman.’

  ‘Kenny—’

  ‘He’ll want something in return eventually. You know that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fine. It’s between you and him. Nothing to do with me. But watch your back.’

  She sensed that her interaction with Parker both at the restaurant and last night had changed her relationship with Armstrong. Had soured it for him. He would never be able to view anything Parker did objectively, no matter how positive it might be for this case. There was nothing she could do about that.

  ‘This case will be over soon,’ he said. ‘Now that we know who Butler is, he can’t stay hidden for ever.’

  Unspoken: and we won’t have to be partners any more.

  Irvine didn’t regret how she had dealt with Parker: it was part of the job. Armstrong would have to carry his own personal demons.

  10

  Four men occupied the seats in the twin cab pick-up truck. A heavy-duty canvas sheet was strapped over the truck bed, covering two automatic rifles and four handguns. Behind the truck was a nondescript, five-year-old sedan. There were two men in the front seats with another two automatic rifles in a bag in the trunk of the car.

  The six men travelled silently in the tension that builds before a battle. They were all veterans and used to the stress of such situations. It did not matter to them that their adversaries this time would be their fellow countrymen and officers of the Federal authorities.

  These men were now on the other side of the line. And the pay-off that awaited all of them was all that mattered now. No one was going to take that away from them. Not one of their own and not the FBI.

  The enem
y was the enemy, no matter what flag they operated under.

  The cars moved on through the night, ten miles from Denver city centre.

  11

  The flat was at the top right of a block of four. It was a familiar local authority property probably built sometime in the fifties or sixties. The entry door was located at ground-floor level beside the door for the lower flat. The stairs up to the first floor were internal.

  Armstrong pulled up to the kerb outside the block and switched the engine off. Irvine looked up at the windows of the flat facing the street.

  ‘Curtains closed,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe no one’s home.’

  ‘Probably still asleep. Let’s go wake them up?’

  Two young children, no older than seven or eight, were playing alone in the front garden of the neighbouring house on the left. Irvine smiled at one of them and got a two-fingered salute in reply.

  ‘Nice,’ she said under her breath.

  Irvine stood behind Armstrong as he knocked on the door of the flat. They waited for thirty seconds and Armstrong tried again – harder this time. Third time, he banged with his fist until they heard movement on the stairs inside. A woman’s voice, groggy from drugs or sleep or something else, asked who was there.

  ‘Police,’ Armstrong said. ‘We need to speak to you.’

  There was the sound of the woman ascending the stairs and a muffled conversation with someone. They couldn’t make out the voices from behind the closed door.

  Armstrong turned to look at Irvine and she raised her eyebrows at him.

  ‘Probably trying to work out where to hide their gear,’ he told her, turning back to hammer on the door again.

  They heard the lock being fiddled with and the door swung inwards. A woman of about twenty stood in the lower hall in a dirty bathrobe. Her eyes were hooded and her jaw muscles slack.

  ‘Come on,’ Armstrong said, stepping into the hall and taking the woman by the elbow to lead her upstairs.

  Irvine followed, smelling ripe body odour and marijuana smoke. The carpet on the stairs was worn at the edges and threadbare. It looked like one of those patterned efforts that had been popular thirty years ago.

  Armstrong reached the top of the stairs with the woman and pushed at the door leading to the hall inside the flat. He went through the door. Irvine was two steps below him when the first gunshot sounded.