People like Mikey, I know how they operate. They don’t prowl the streets looking for vulnerable people to prey upon. People come to them. It’s amazing how people dig their own graves.
“Okay,” I tell her, “Come along with me.”
“Where are we going?” She looks up at me small. Frightened. But with a look that’s like admiration and trust. Fires up my heart to see it.
“I’m going to see Mikey,” I tell her, “And I’m taking you with me.”
She tries to pull away. I hold her. Gently. I turn to face her. Look directly at her. “I’ve got you now.” I held her shoulders. “Do you trust me?”
She nods. Slowly at first. Then quickly a second time.
“Nothing bad is going to happen to you, Greta. Not ever again. I’ll protect you. You have my word.” I hold her shoulders look right in her eyes as I command her. “Believe me.” She straightens up. Her trembling steadies, at least.
When I get the two of us back to the warehouse, one of the helicopters has left already. I’m guessing that means the candidate has gone. I’m making a mental note. If he’s doing deals with Mikey, then I know who not to vote for. Two huge curtains part, one either side.
Oversized, muscle-bound goons lead us down the narrow corridor to a big black door. One reaches for the door, the other reaches for Greta.
I raise a hand and he reacts quickly enough before his finger touches her. I would have broken it off.
He’s likely twice my weight, nearly twice my size. He raises both hands, palms out.
“She stays outside.”
Chapter 9 Greta
Logan looks hard into the big man’s eye. Tells him, “She stays with me.” The power in his voice makes me squirm, hot.
The guard’s lips press together. He’s about to speak when Logan tells him, “Check with Mikey if you want.” Then he lowers his voice to a growl. “If you make a mistake, it will be a big one.”
The guard blinks. After he thinks about it for a moment, he nods at the other guard. The door opens and we step into a large room that is mostly in darkness.
The two guards follow us in and shut the door. They stand with a line of guards at the back of the room. At the far end is a light from an overhead lamp. In the light, Mikey sits behind a wide desk in a huge leather armchair. In a black suit, with an immaculate white shirt, with jeweled cufflinks I can see the from the far end of the massive dark space.
It’s a long walk from the door to the desk. Logan holds my hand. Mikey
“Well, well,” Mikey calls out. He steeples his fingers in front of his face.
“Logan, as I live and breathe.” Then reaches for a big cigar. “Okay, there are a couple of reasons I need to see you. The skinhead, Logan. He wasn’t supposed to survive that encounter. You know what I mean?”
Logan says nothing.
Mikey shakes his head before he goes on. “I hand-picked you for this detail.”
“So I heard. I guess you thought I would go berserker on him.”
We’re in front of his big desk now. There are a couple of chairs. He invites us to sit. Logan stays on his feet, so I do the same. Mikey shrugs.
“Based on what I saw in Afghanistan, yeah.”
“You know I collected a chestful of medals for saving your asses out there.”
“Sure. But I thought that was the Corps, covering up its own mistake.”
“It was. But not the way you thought.” Logan leaned on the desk.
A big man from the back of the room moves, but Mikey holds up a hand to stop him. “Tell me.”
“That nest of hostiles? The ones I took out with a rocket launcher? They would have lit up your convoy and blown up everyone in it.”
“You took a chance, firing rockets at them. They were awful close to my truck.”
“The bigger chance would have been if I hadn’t.”
Mikey leans back, studying Logan carefully. “You could have rushed them.”
“I was dragged out of R&R, less than an hour back from a ninety-six-hour firefight. I couldn’t have rushed a sleeping rock. I could hardly fucking stand. My choice was between pouring rockets into the Taliban or watching them cut your platoon into hamburger meat.”
Mikey’s cheeks drain pale.
“The Corps’ mistake was sending me out on foot, alone in the dark with some little white pills, into the badlands of Helmand Province to give a back-marker to four vehicles and twenty-two men.”
Mikey listens in silence.
Logan says, “Fast forward to your patrol in the twilight and the scrub. Rockets and tracer fire going off everywhere, I was crouched in the rear door of a busted farmhouse, facing backwards. Then I saw a bunch of men and a lot of grenades. I just made the bad guys lie down. I didn’t trust myself to deploy subtlety.”
Under his breath, Mikey said, “Damn.”
“Bottom line, Mikey, just getting the job done. The Corps would have preferred an easier way out. Truth be told, so would I. It is what it is.”
Mike took a long breath through his nose. His cigar ash was long, and it drooped.
Logan leaned on his knuckles. “I did my job, Mikey. Best way I could.”
“I can’t fault you for that, Logan. That’s what you did.”
Mikey flicks the ash and takes a long draw on the cigar. Looks at Logan, tilting his chair back. Says, “I guess I missed something when I was figuring.”
His head shakes slowly. “Okay,” Mikey says, “I guess I have to let the thing with the skinhead ride. I’ll take the bumpy landing on that one. You did the right thing.”
Logan says, “The skinhead is going to
