been bought at the cost of shafting everyone on his team who had trusted him. The meeting began with one of the Americans tabling an extradition order for the Preacher Graeme Fredericksen as a material witness to the murder of Dr Laura Di-Cuollo. It had been received yesterday, they said.
Harrigan looked it over as it was passed to him. ‘You may be a little late,’ he commented.
‘We’re aware of that, Commander,’ one of the Americans said.
‘Your shooter has done our job for us.’
Harrigan perceived that the use of the word ‘Commander’ had the intent of flattering his ego. The implication behind this supposed compliment insulted him.
‘The issue here is the Avenging Angels.’ The woman from the security agency spoke up. ‘We have been concerned they may be attempting to establish themselves here. That seems unlikely now, given the course of events, but, as you’ll appreciate, we need to be certain.’
‘Have been concerned?’ Harrigan queried.
‘Yes,’ the other American said, ‘we’ve been watching Fredericksen for some time now. Unfortunately — and we regret this — we were unable to anticipate the present outcome. But we have to say, Commander, we’ve been very impressed with the professionalism of your investigation. You’ve got some very good people there.’
Had some very good people there. He did not reply to this.
‘A pity we didn’t join forces before today. We might have had one less death on our hands,’ he said instead in his neutral voice, referring — at least in his own mind — to Professor Henry Liu rather than the preacher.
‘We understand your feelings on this point,’ the first American replied, ‘but you do have to understand that these are very dangerous people we’re dealing with here. We were unable to say or do anything that might jeopardise our own investigations in any way.’
Harrigan did not feel the need to respond.
The man continued: ‘Unfortunately, we weren’t able to exactly determine Fredericksen’s relationship to the Angels’ inner circle prior to his decease. We know he was pretty close but we don’t know how close. We were hoping he could name us some names. I guess we won’t be able to ask him now.’
‘No.’ Harrigan’s reply was untouched by any regret for the preacher’s fate. ‘Was he paid for Dr Liu?’
The agency woman received the question with the same neutrality with which it had been asked.
‘Yes, he was. His financial transactions were paid through a merchant bank in LA, by means of a proxy.’
‘We have that individual in custody now,’ the first American added.
‘He’s helping us with our inquiries, as you put it over here.’
‘Who was bankrolling this, as a matter of interest?’ Harrigan asked.
‘There are a variety of sources we’ve tracked down,’ the man prevaricated. ‘A small-arms manufacturer in California left a certain sum of money to another possible suspect we have in our sights. There are other benefactors as well.’
‘My concern is that the Angels don’t get a foothold here,’ the woman said. ‘We can’t be complacent in assuming they haven’t, irregardless of this turn of events. There are avenues we have to examine. We think it’s best we do this now, while they’re likely to be uncoordinated and may be considering going on the run.’
Harrigan took this to mean that they probably had established themselves in some way and that they might even have escaped from beneath the national security organisation’s net of surveillance.
‘I take it you’d like us to wind up our current investigation ASAP?’
he asked.
‘If you would. We’ll pick up that angle of the investigation from here,’ the woman said briskly. ‘If you can charge this young girl you’ve got in custody without referring to this particular organisation, then we’d like that to end your involvement in the matter. We’ll need to interview her but as we understand it, she knew nothing about their existence. Is that the case?’
‘Yes, that’s quite right,’ he replied. ‘She had no knowledge of that particular connection. She was acting from purely personal motives.’
‘We thought not.’ The second American spoke with a hint of contempt. ‘She was the patsy.’
‘I don’t think I’d quite describe her as that,’ Harrigan said.
‘We can rely on your confidence in this matter, Commander? And that of your people?’ the first American asked.
‘Of course.’ He smiled.
The meeting ended shortly afterwards, everyone unfailingly polite to one another to the end.
After the meeting, Harrigan went back to his old office to talk to everyone as he had promised he would. When he arrived, much of it had already been cleared out and it had the look of the abandoned territory it had become. There was the sense of a pervasive, collective hangover. Both Ian and Trevor were quiet, barely greeting him. They were in the incident room, stripping the images from the corkboard.
Harrigan watched as Matthew and Henry Liu, Greg Smith and the Firewall’s website disappeared into the shredder and were then emptied into the classified waste bag. Everything that had once cushioned him in this job was finishing, the more so when he spoke to them in his old office to tell them they had been warned off any further work on the Avenging Angels. They listened with an expected cynicism.
‘That’s no surprise,’ Trevor said, ‘they wouldn’t want us traipsing around. So what do we do now? Just tie up the murder investigation and leave it at that?’
‘That’s about it, yeah,’ Harrigan replied.
‘It’s nice of them to think we’ve got enough brainpower to do that.
That shouldn’t take too long, I guess,’ Ian said. ‘Not much to wrap up there.’
‘I’ve got you positions at the Agency. I’m looking to act you both up at positions a level above the ones you’re in now,’ he said.
‘What more could we want?’ Trevor said. ‘Do you want us to thank you?’
‘No, mate. I want you to do your job and I’m sure you will. Where’s Louise?’
‘The last time I saw Lou, her eyes were disappearing into the top of her head,’ Ian said. ‘Why don’t you ring her at home? Of course, she probably won’t have dried out yet.’
‘I will,’ he said. ‘Okay, thanks. I’ll see you both tomorrow at the Agency.’
‘We’ll be there,’ they said, and left his office.
He wondered if they would ever trust him enough again to have a drink with him.
Shortly after, Grace appeared.
‘How are you?’ he said.
‘I’m fine. You need to read this.’
She handed him a letter which he read over with interest.
‘You didn’t need any help from me,’ he said. ‘This is a very good job you’ve landed. Very prestigious.’
‘Do you think so? Not as prestigious as yours though, is it?’ she replied, smiling at him, making him smile back. ‘What happened to my shirt?’
‘I’m afraid it’s cactus, Grace. It lasted about ten minutes. I can get you a new one.’
‘You don’t have to do that,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s just a shirt.’
‘Yeah, I guess. Do you still want to see me tonight? Will you come and spend the night at my place?’
‘I don’t know where you live,’ she said.
She thought, I don’t even know who you are outside of this place.
He wrote his address on a piece of paper and gave it to her.
‘Do you want to go out? I can get some takeaway if you like,’ he said.
‘No, let me do that. All right, I’ll see you there. Seven-thirty?’
‘Yeah. It’ll be good to see you.’
She smiled and left. Yes, it would be. He would need her company, after today.
Grace arrived at Harrigan’s house in the mid evening, walking down wide stone steps and then through the lush plants overgrown onto the flagstones, to see him through the open door to his lighted kitchen. She stopped in the doorway, watching him loosening his tie at the end of the day.
‘Hi,’ he said, seeing her there. ‘You’re here.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, hesitating a little.
‘Do you want to come in?’
‘Sure.’
