Chapter 31 #3
I generally enjoy these nights. Sometimes they even make me a little nostalgic for all I’ve left behind. And there’s no denying I’d still lay my life down for any man at this table. More than once, lately, especially on nights like Avonmouth, I’ve wished I still had them with me.
But I don’t miss taking orders from politicians. And at this particular moment, watching the Sandman work the room like an Amway salesman, I definitely don’t miss my old fucking instructor.
I don’t remember him being so tedious, I think, watching him lavish effusive praise on one of the younger lads. Anyone would think he was trying to recruit them, not catching up after retirement.
“So we’re all on the wall now, boys.” He grins around the table. “But if any of you want work, there’s still plenty to be had.” He cuts his eyes sideways to me. “Real work,” he says in an oddly pointed way. “For the king and country you were trained to protect.”
Paddy snorts derisively. “Come on, man. You don’t still believe that shite, now do you?”
The Sandman’s smile fades. “Clearly more than either of you two do, from what I hear.”
The others at the table stiffen.
The problem with tension in a troop like ours is that everyone is trained to kill, no matter how much whiskey is sitting in their gut. Getting into it with men like these isn’t just stupid.
It’s suicide.
“I take it you’ve got something you’d like to say, Major Welch.” I face him calmly across the table. “Why don’t you and I step outside and make it a private conversation?”
The major tilts his chin at the door, his eyes cold. “Come on, then.”
I stand, pressing my hand down on Paddy’s shoulder to stop him rising after me, and nod at the table. “We’ll be back, lads. Don’t go finishing the Scotch without me.”
They tilt their glasses in my direction, but their eyes are shrewd. Everyone at the table knows something is going down.
Outside, the air is cold enough to knock the breath from my body. The major is leaning against the wall, pint in one hand, cigarette in the other.
“Right, then.” I fold my arms and glare at him. “Out with it. This isn’t fucking selection, so freezing my arse off just because you order it is no longer a requirement.”
“I understand any man hanging up their boots.” He draws on his cigarette, then glares at me through the stream of smoke he blows out.
“And we all know how shit our pension is, so signing up for the odd private contracting payday is standard practice. But what I can’t understand, Luke, what keeps me fucking up at night ever since I found out about it, is how a man who signed up to defend his country can switch sides and take money from those trying to destroy it. ”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
I’m in no mood for this shit tonight.
I remain silent, staring blankly at him. May as well let the man get it all off his chest.
“I had a call from Rhys Stewart last week.” Major Welch shakes his head in disgust.
I only just manage to restrain myself from rolling my eyes.
“He became very attached to you during the time you worked together in Afghanistan. After we spoke, I started asking some questions of my own. Imagine my surprise,” he says coldly, “when I discovered you seem to be a permanent fixture at the most corrupt club in London—not to mention extremely cozy with the murderous bitch who runs it.”
Decades ago, I trained myself never to react to provocation.
Unfortunately, the past two weeks of being stonewalled by Zinaida appear to have damaged my legendary control, because before I have any kind of conscious thought, I’ve slammed my former superior up against the brick wall of the pub, lifting him by the throat a full foot from the ground.
“You and I both know that trying to talk right now is only going to make you lose valuable oxygen.” My voice is cold and hard enough that even I barely recognize it, and by the way the major’s eyes flare, he’s starting to realize he might not be dealing with the same man he thought he knew.
“You and I have known each other a long time, Welch.”
I use the name deliberately, putting a distance between our old association and this conversation by ignoring both his nickname and his rank.
“Out of respect for those years,” I go on, “I’ll save us both the bullshit conversation we were about to have and ask you some yes or no questions. Blink twice for yes, three times for no. Fail to answer, and your dead body will be found in a rubbish dump next spring. Got it?”
Welch, whose face is slowly turning red, blinks twice. Yes.
“Good man.” I squeeze a little tighter, and his legs twitch. “Did Rhys Stewart ask you to organize tonight’s little shindig?”
He blinks twice again. Yes.
“Did he ask you to have this conversation with me?”
Another yes.
“Do you know why Rhys Stewart is taking such a personal interest in my new employment?”
There’s the briefest hesitation, then Welch blinks three times.
“You just lied to me, Ian.” I grip his throat harder. “So I’m going to ask you a different question. Has Rhys Stewart been trying to murder Zinaida Melikov?”
Another pause, slightly longer this time, then three slow blinks. Welch is close to passing out.
He’s also lying.
“I’m going to put you down now. Let you catch your breath.” I lower him as I speak. “But then I have some more questions.”
I drop him abruptly to the ground, relinquishing my hold on his neck, and he doubles over, coughing as he tries to pull air into his lungs.
Before he manages to recover, I twist him around, arms behind his back, his face slammed up against the wall.
I put my mouth close to his ear. “What skin do you have in this game, Ian?”
The man trained me to withstand torture. We both know he can go days, in circumstances far worse than this, before he cracks.
“Don’t do this, Macarthur.” His voice is a painful rasp. “Just walk away. Trust me, it’s the smart option. These people don’t fuck around.”
“These people, huh?” I slam him against the brick wall. “Names, Sandman.”
“Don’t fucking call me that,” he hisses.
“Why not, o chara?”
I spin around, startled, to find the entire troop arrayed behind Paddy, arms folded, staring hard-eyed at the two of us.
“Do you not want us to call you Sandman anymore,” Paddy goes on, “because you know you’ve betrayed everything it means to be known by that fucking name? Is that it?”
I turn Ian to face the group and his eyes move from one set face to another. “You don’t know shit,” he says furiously.
“Now you see, that’s not quite true.” Paddy tilts his head to one side.
“For instance, I know that last week Rhys Stewart had lunch with a piece of shit called Simon Lowbridge. I know that less than an hour after he left the restaurant, you sent a message inviting us all to tonight’s little reunion.
At the time, now, I didn’t put those two things together.
Why would I, after all?” He gestures with his head to the young Scottish lad next to him, the most recent retiree from the forces.
“It was only when young Bryan happened to mention, just now, that you’d been offering him some cash work on home soil that things began to make sense. ”
“Is that right.” Ian spits blood on the ground.
“You started Bryan off with some private security work, so he tells me. On docks up north, for Lowbridge Inc.” Paddy stares at our old instructor with the same disgust he might regard a cockroach.
“When Bryan objected to the kind of shipments coming in, you lied to his face. Told him it was all part of a covert operation to break up a human trafficking ring—which, you claimed, was being run by Zinaida Melikov.”
I slam Ian hard against the wall. “You piece of fucking shit,” I growl, putting a hand over his mouth to shut off whatever bullshit he’s about to speak.
“It gets worse,” Paddy continues. “After Georgiy Ivanov was killed, the major told Bryan that Zinaida was such a threat that the government had given up trying to bring her to justice and decided to just take her out themselves. He told Bryan he’d taken an enormous paycheck to do the job, off the books and off the record, but that he’d run into problems because another operative was running protection for her. ”
He meets my eyes with an uncharacteristically sober expression. “That’s you, cock,” he says quietly. “In case it wasn’t clear.”
Betrayal and corrosive anger churn in my gut.
I turn to Bryan, not trusting myself to form the words I need to ask.
“The major told me you were working with the traffickers.” Bryan doesn’t flinch as he offers the information.
“When I didn’t believe him, he showed me footage of you fighting our men in Avonmouth as proof.
Then he offered me more money than I’d ever seen if I’d make sure you were no longer a problem.
” The Scot shakes his head. “I refused. When he pushed it, I said I needed to hear from your own mouth that you were involved before I took the job. He told me that if I came tonight, I’d get the proof I was after. ”
My lip curls. “And did you?”
“Aye,” says the Scot stolidly. “But not the kind the major was hoping.” He tilts his head to Paddy. “I got much more interesting answers from your man here.”
“Fortunately,” says Paddy, glaring at Welch, “Bryan still knows what loyalty fucking means. Which is why he asked the right questions—and listened to the answers—before taking out one of his own brothers on your command, you evil fuck.”
There’s a horrible silence, during which Ian Welch studies the fierce, extremely dangerous line of faces in front of him.
Then he raises his eyes to mine defiantly.
“You can talk about loyalty and honor all you fucking like,” he growls.
“I’m not the one sleeping with a murderous psychopath who bribes half the city and kills the ones she can’t. ”
Christ.
Fuck this prick.
I punch Ian once, extremely hard, in the side of the head, knocking him senseless.
“Well, that’s one way to end a conversation.” Paddy nods at Welch’s limp figure. “What do we do with him now?”
“We take the party somewhere more private.” I give the group of men a dark smile. “I’m sure you all remember how difficult Major Welch made torture week during selection, and how much he seemed to enjoy it.”
Their eyes begin to gleam.
“Well,” I say, dragging the major’s unconscious body toward Paddy’s car, “we’re about to find out just how well our old instructor here puts his own lessons into practice.”