admit to being with Arrowsake? No, I just bet that you were Sergeant Hunter of One-Para, and Jared there was just plain old Private Rington of the Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment. Well, for that reason I am Special Agent Stephen Vincent of the FBI.’
‘Nothing plain about the Seventy-Fifth,’ Rink stated.
I had caught the weight of what Vince was trying to say. I stared at the young man, waiting for him to confirm the truth, and finally knew the reason for my unease on the flight here.
Vince threw up his hands. ‘OK, you’ve got me. I’m an Arrowsake alumnus, just like the two of you. Just don’t tell Walter that you got the confession from me so easily, eh?’
‘Arrowsake was demobilised.’ Even as I spoke I realised that my words held no meaning. Both Rink and I had been lied to. Following 9/11 and the change in methods employed by Western governments, the counterterrorism services had come under close scrutiny. Objections to Guantanamo Bay and then the furore following the alleged torture of prisoners in Iraq had forced rules which made the old style tactics intolerable, leading Arrowsake to be rapidly dismantled before an even greater scandal could be discovered. Rink and I, and all our colleagues, had been seen as virtual dinosaurs who had no place in the modern war on terror. Our demobilisation, I understood now, was nothing but a smokescreen, a lie.
‘ Your Arrowsake was,’ Vince confirmed. He gave a flourish like a Shakespearean actor. ‘Meet the new wave.’
Incredulous, I could only grunt. The truth had been staring me in the face for a long time now. When I thought about it, Walter seemed to have more sway than even a CIA sub-division controller should have. He had the ear of presidents and prime ministers, and had manipulated even the decisions of the US Secretary of State before now. Arrowsake hadn’t died; it had simply been buried even deeper than before — at the expense of the men who’d fought loyally for it in the past. Rink and I had been kicked loose to give way to younger hotshots like Stephen Vincent.
‘This is bullshit!’ Rink looked ready to go on a rampage.
I couldn’t have agreed more. For almost five years since we’d been cut loose I’d drifted, feeling like there was a huge hole in my life. The rift had destroyed my marriage, destroyed some of my humanity when considering what I’d become, and for no other reason than that we’d been treated like garbage to be disposed of before we became an embarrassment.
Rink jabbed a finger at Vince. ‘You ain’t part of us, boy. Never will be.’
Vince shrugged. ‘Don’t want to be, Rink. You’re old timers now. No insult intended.’
‘No fucking insult…’
I grabbed Rink, told him to take it easy. Rink snarled at Vince over my shoulder. ‘That little punk thinks he’s a better man than we are, Joe! Just give me a couple seconds an’ I’ll show him the truth.’
Vince straightened up. ‘Maybe you won’t find me so easy, Rink. I did all right with your buddy. Right, Hunter?’
I thought about Vince’s sneak attack with the garrotte. OK, he’d got the drop on me then, but a tactic like that wouldn’t help Vince if Rink wanted to kick his butt. Or if I decided a little payback was in order.
A door snicked open and all three of us swung round to see Walter standing in the threshold. He seemed to have got a grip on himself, because he wore the featureless expression he reserved for moments just like this. ‘I thought I’d better interject before this turns into a pissing competition. Jesus, it’s so bad that you can smell the testosterone in here!’
‘What you smell is the crap you’ve been feeding us all these years,’ Rink snapped at him. ‘I can’t believe you’d do this to us, Walter.’
‘You’re upset, and rightly so,’ Walter said.
‘Fucking upset? This little punk as much as says he’s a fuckin’ blue ray disc and I’m just a Beta-Max. Dead right, I’m fucking upset!’ Rink wasn’t one for going off like this and his fury was a surprise; normally it was Rink who had to caution me.
I turned a hurt look on my adopted father. ‘This doesn’t come as a surprise to me. Arrowsake was outmoded, but it was obvious that something else would take its place. What I am shocked at is the way we’ve been lied to.’
Walter waved me down. ‘I’ve never lied to you. I’ve just been selective with the truth.’ He looked me in the eye, before switching his scrutiny to Rink. ‘You know that I’ve protected you both, but it never occurred to you just how that could be?’
‘Friendship?’ Rink said sarcastically.
‘Yes, friendship. But also because you were important to me in another way.’
‘We were trained dogs to bark at your command,’ Rink snapped.
‘I wouldn’t put it that way.’
‘How would you put it?’ I asked. ‘You’ve been using us, Walter. You weren’t thinking of us as friends, you thought of us only in terms of personal assets.’
Walter shook his head. ‘No, Hunter, that isn’t the way it was.’
‘The Harvestman? Luke Rickard? Weren’t they hits designated by Arrowsake?’
‘Do you truly believe either of those assholes would be any concern of Arrowsake? I helped you with those problems, as well as the colossal fuck-ups you got yourselves involved in down in Florida and in Texas, because I wanted to. Like I said, you were important to me.’
I laughed mirthlessly. ‘You were saving us for a greater cause. Well, fuck you, Walter.’
Vince placed himself directly in front of me. ‘You can’t step away from this, Hunter. Have you forgotten the problem of a dozen dead people over in Pennsylvania? Maybe you should think about that.’
‘Is that right, Vince?’ I palm-heeled Vince under the chin and knocked the young man sprawling on his back. Only the fact that I’d tempered the blow meant that he was conscious enough to hear my next words. ‘There’s also the small matter of a dead girl who was shoved out of a car window, or have you forgotten about that, you son of a bitch?’
‘Sonya Madden was a potential murderer,’ Vince spluttered from a bleeding mouth.
On hearing the rumble of laughter from Rink, I couldn’t help shaking my head at the irony of it all. We looked at each other, and that was it. We both broke into loud laughter.
I pointed at the young upstart. ‘With people like him it’s no wonder that you’ve had to keep us on retainer, Walt.’
‘Then… you’re happy to be back?’ Walter asked.
Speaking for us both, Rink said, ‘We were never happy to be gone.’
A smile flickered over Walter’s mouth. The only one who didn’t look so pleased with the turn of events was Vince who scowled up at us as he checked for loose teeth. Around his fingertips, he muttered, ‘You took me by surprise, old man. Won’t happen again.’
‘Not unless you give me a good reason.’ I held a hand out to Vince. ‘That’s us square now, Vince. I owed you that for almost taking my head off with your garrotte.’
Vince thought about it, and again I noted that he was much sharper than he seemed. He stretched up and took my hand and I hauled him to his feet.
Vince gave Rink a steady look. ‘What about us? We OK, Rink?’
‘Call me Jared. You ain’t earned the right to call me Rink yet. That’s just for my friends.’ But then Rink clapped Vince on the shoulder and gave him a wink.
The door opened again and one of Walter’s ever-present bodyguards appeared carrying a tray laden with a jug of coffee and all the makings. Walter pushed his cigar between his teeth, using the excuse of playing host to move things on. ‘Excellent. Now we can get down to the real business.’
‘Yeah,’ Rink agreed. ‘It’s about time we got some answers.’
‘So what is the deal, Walter?’
A few minutes later I wished I’d never asked.
Chapter 33
