Friendly Fire

by Cari Z.

  “To the right of the oven.” Having seen Lennox’s hesitation, Elliot felt the urge to press. “How often is Lee over at your house?”

  “Not too often.”

  Nightmares. Elliot remembered Lennox mentioning them before they fell asleep together. Nothing had happened that night, or last night as far as Elliot knew, but maybe when they manifested it was a lot worse than normal nightmares. Not the sort of thing a kid could sleep through, perhaps. He watched in silence as Lennox broke the eggs into the pan, scrambled them up, and threw cheese in. It was quick, simple food, the kind that Mischa used to make for them on the weekends when they’d been too tired to go out. He’d dressed it up with chives and Himalayan rock salt, but in the end it had just been eggs, greasy and delicious.

  Lennox sat down on the other stool as he set a plate in front of Elliot, jolting him from his reverie. “Bon appétit.”

  “Merci.” He took a careful bite, and then, when his stomach didn’t kick up a fuss, another. “It’s good. Thank you.”

  “It was easy to make.”

  “That’s not what I’m . . .” Elliot shook his head. “Thank you for being here. I know I said it before, but I mean it. I don’t want you to risk your job over taking care of me, especially when you have no good reason to, but I’m really glad you’re here.”

  Lennox put his fork down. “I don’t think the fallout’s gonna be that bad, but even if it is, I’d rather be here and know you’re okay than hear about it secondhand from Serena when you’re not and wonder why you didn’t call me. I need―” It was his turn to seem frustrated. “I’ve got a need to verify, these days. Check and double-check. If I wasn’t here, I’d just be thinking about you anyway, so. Thanks for letting me stay.” He picked up his fork and ate determinedly, as if his discomfort could be buried beneath activity. Elliot let him have his distance, and treasured the blossoming warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with his bruises.

  Lennox took Holly out before they left, which was nice because it gave Elliot a chance to moan and groan without an audience as he got into his shoes and jacket. He moved like an old man, evaluating every body part before he shifted it, but his head was clear and he was ready for some answers. Or barring answers, at least a chance to evaluate whether his car could be saved. He carefully didn’t allow his mind to ramble down the path of who, why, what if? Instead he waited for Lennox to bring Holly in from the cold, then gratefully took the man’s hand for support as they went out the front door.

  In true Colorado fashion, it had snowed half a foot overnight. Equally true to Colorado, the sun was now out and it had to be close to forty degrees, because the snow was already starting to melt. “I love it here,” Elliot sighed, looking out over the plains as Lennox began to drive back into Golden. “Nowhere else has ever really felt like home.”

  “It has its charms,” Lennox allowed. “I’m not sure I’m sold on the whole ‘ice and snow and mountains’ thing, though.”

  “This is the South in you rising up in rebellion, isn’t it?” Elliot demanded. “You’ve got to fight the good fight here, Lennox. Don’t let the memory of warm winters blind you to all the other shit that you get down there: humidity, bugs, incoming tropical diseases, and pure chaos whenever the gods do bless the place with snow.”

  Lennox took a left at the light, heading away from downtown and toward the warehouse district. “You make a strong case, advocate.”

  “I do indeed. If I wasn’t a businessman, I’d be a lawyer—oh wait, I was.”

  “And how did that turn out for you?”

  Coming from any other person, that question would have been loaded with sarcasm and Elliot would have responded in kind. But Lennox just sounded slightly amused, which was a state of being Elliot could get behind. And the question deserved his honesty. “It wasn’t the best, I’m not going to lie. But I enjoyed it for quite a while, and knowing how to present my point of view persuasively has certainly helped me get to where I am today.” He shrugged a little. “Despite the fact that I clearly haven’t won everyone over, I don’t regret my life.”

  “Just some of your decisions,” Lennox said softly. He seemed a thousand miles away.

  “A few,” Elliot agreed. They had been big decisions, with correspondingly big regrets, but he couldn’t dwell on them without drowning in them. Better to push them aside and press on.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes before Lennox turned onto Castillion Place. “You know you’ve arrived once they’re naming streets after you,” Elliot murmured, coaxing another smile out of Lennox.

  “It’s because of the factory. This was an undeveloped part of town before Rodney bought part of it and started making knives here. He’s brought a lot of attention and revenue to Golden, so they gave him props. It’s not that impressive though,” he added as they pulled to a stop in front of a single-story brick building with CASTILLION written in wide white letters over the front door. The T in the word was shaped like a dagger. Lovely. “The city council almost named a street Dunkin around the same time.” He stopped the truck. “You need help getting out?”

  There was no judgment there, but there was also likely no fooling the man. “I can get out,” Elliot said. “I’m just not sure how far I can go from there.”

  “I’ll be here if you need me.”

  I know you will. It was a comforting promise, even if Elliot hated that he might need to rely on it. He managed to get his feet onto the pavement okay, though, and after the first few steps, his soreness eased to the point where he barely limped.

  Inside, the store was surprisingly large, with rows of glass display cases filled with knives, handguns, and all sorts of weaponly ephemera that Elliot couldn’t identify. A man who looked like a skinnier version of Santa Claus was ringing up a customer at the front desk, but as soon as he saw Lennox his cheery demeanor fell into something grave, disappointed even. This was the boss, then. The customer left, bag in hand, and the white-haired man waited expectantly.

  Lennox took a deep breath. “Let me talk to Rodney and go get Kevin. I’ll be right back.”

  “Take your time.” Elliot turned to the nearest display case and surveyed the contents. Nothing in there was explosive or edged; good, these were more his speed. ASP: Airweight Expandable Baton, the card beside one of the things read. Apparently they came in black, silver, or camouflage. A color for every occasion, whether it was beating people at a black-tie event or clubbing bunny rabbits as they ran through the woods.

  “Are you interested in a baton?” a salesperson asked, coming up on Elliot from behind. Elliot almost startled, but his body wasn’t in the mood to comply, thank god. The man was youngish, had thick, dark glasses framing a round face and a beard you could have lost small animals in. Elliot glanced at his name tag. Ah, this was the infamous Kevin. He seemed like Lennox’s polar opposite.

  “I don’t think I’ve got the appropriate skill set to use one well,” Elliot demurred. “I was never much of a baseball player.”

  “Oh, dude, no, you totally don’t have to be any kind of athlete to use one of these! I mean, I carry a baton myself and look at me.” Kevin patted his slightly rounded stomach. “Of course, for me it’s just a backup weapon, but I still really like having it on hand. It’s comforting, you know? Like having a tactical flashlight, but without the flash.”

  “I have no idea what a tactical flashlight is,” Elliot said.

  Kevin’s face brightened further, and he led Elliot to another case. “Oh, they’re great! They’re super bright—it’s all about lumens, mostly, but they also make a great fist pack to support your hand when you’re throwing punches, and there are crenellations on the end so that if you impact that way, you do extra damage. See?” He opened up the case and pulled out a four-inch flashlight. It did, indeed, have teeth carved out of the end. Elliot shuddered.

  “This one has a strobe function too, and the back glows red in case you want to leave it out as an emergency beacon, and if you pull it apart like this—” he demon
strated “—it’s like a lantern! It’s so useful. I’ve had one of these going since four o’clock this morning.”

  “Why so early?”

  “I’ve been checking out some wreckage, trying to determine whether or not there was any foul play.”

  “Foul play.” Good phrase, I should have remembered that one. “And was there anything foul at work in my car?” Elliot asked.

  Kevin’s reaction was gratifyingly enthusiastic. He could give Holly a run for her money. “Holy shit, you’re the dude! Oh wow, you— It’s your car? Dude! How did you walk away from that? The damage is fucking sick!”

  “Kevin.” Santa Claus—or Rodney, Elliot presumed—was walking their way, looking embarrassed. Lennox came with him, avoiding eye contact even though Elliot tried. “Please don’t use that kind of language with a customer.”

  “Yeah, but Rodney, it’s his car! This is the guy with the car!” He turned back to Elliot and stuck out a hand. “It’s so nice to meet you, dude!”

  “Likewise.” Elliot shook, then rerouted Kevin’s wandering attention. “And what did you find out about the car?”

  “Oh, yeah. It was totally hacked.”

  It shouldn’t have been such a huge relief to Elliot; he’d known that his car had been hacked―it was the reason for the crash. Still, hearing someone else verify it so readily lifted off one particular weight, while another surged in with a vengeance. Elliot wasn’t crazy and he had hard evidence to prove it: excellent. Someone wanted to screw with him badly enough to actually hack his car: frightening. “Would you mind showing me how?”

  “Showing all of us,” Lennox interjected.

  “Dudes.” Kevin grinned like it was Christmas morning. “I’d love to.”

  Partial transcription of most recent appointment with West, Lennox, Staff Sergeant US Army Rangers (R), January 28, 3:19 p.m.:

  JS: You’re right, I don’t understand how you feel. But I can see that this decision weighs heavily on you, and I want to try and help you come to terms with what happened, so you can move forward.

  LW: There are some things you don’t move forward from. You don’t deserve to. The men who died, they were under my command. They’ll never move on. The guy who did the shooting did so on my orders, and it’s fucked him up for life. Yeah, we were acquitted of any wrongdoing, but that doesn’t matter.

  JS: It does matter, Lennox. You made the best decision you could at the time.

  LW: It was still wrong. Friendly fire . . . isn’t that the worst name you’ve ever heard of for killing a teammate?

  The first thing Lennox thought when he saw the car was, Thank fuck Elliot survived. His second thought was, Thank fuck there were no passengers in there. The driver’s side was banged up from rolling, but seemed largely intact. The passenger’s side had been scraped along the canyon wall, and it was . . . well, it mostly wasn’t there anymore. The door was missing, part of the roof was gone, and the tires had practically evaporated. It was the worst damage he’d seen on a vehicle up close since an IED exploded under a convoy two tours ago. He shivered.

  Kevin never had time for anyone’s discomfort, and was rambling on without a care in the world. “I was worried at first that I wouldn’t be able to find anything because there’s so much damage to this side, but when I found the dongle I knew I was going to get lucky.” He pointed at the tiny black device inserted into the car’s USB port, almost out of sight on the passenger side.

  Elliot frowned. “That’s from my insurance company.”

  “Yeah, that’s what it looks like,” Kevin crowed. “But it’s a fake dongle! It’s got some amazing software on it that tapped right into your car’s computer and handed over essential functionality to whoever was controlling it.”

  “So someone had to break into my car to put it there.”

  Kevin waved a hand. “Yeah, but that was probably the easy part. It’s not hard to break into a Porsche, I’ve―” he glanced back toward Rodney, who was standing in the doorway, and cleared his throat “—never done it before myself, obviously, or like, not for years, y’know? Definitely not. But it takes about ten seconds.”

  “Interesting,” Elliot murmured before turning back to Kevin and putting on a pleasant face. “Is there any way to trace the signal to whoever was controlling my car? Or track the software?”

  Kevin shook his head. “The signal leads to a dead end, probably a burner phone. And the software . . . man, it’s good but it’s not signed or anything. You’d have to know a lot more about hacking than me to get a clue about who might have made it just from the code.”

  “Kevin?” Rodney called out. “If you’re done here, someone really ought to be minding the store.”

  “Right.” Kevin nodded, one hand still caressing the dented side of the Porsche.

  “I mean you, Kevin.”

  “Oh. Oh, sorry. Sorry! I just . . .” He turned a beaming smile at Elliot. “It’s so interesting. I never could have imagined yesterday that I’d get to root around in a car like this! With permission and everything!”

  “Kevin.”

  “Right, sorry, sorry.” Kevin scooted, and Lennox got ready for round two with Rodney. He hadn’t been fired—not quite—but the man didn’t approve of his business being dragged into what looked like an enormous mess, and he appreciated Lennox aiding and abetting that mess even less.

  “I thought you finally had your head on straight,” he’d said fifteen minutes ago, disappointment suffusing his voice. “What are you getting out of this? Some sort of penance? You have nothing left to pay for.”

  “I know that,” Lennox had replied, as convincingly as he could. “This has nothing to do with me. This is about helping someone in need.”

  Rodney had arched an eyebrow. “Our assistance doesn’t extend as far as allowing customers to stow their compromised cars on company property. It doesn’t extend as far as getting my employees wrapped up in their troubles, either. What’s really going on here, Lennox? What have you gotten yourself into?”

  Lennox had sighed. “Sir, with respect . . . that’s not something I can talk about right now.”

  It had been nicer than saying none of your business, but Lennox hated the thought of disappointing the man who’d taken a chance on him, especially since he wasn’t going to back down. He had no intention of leaving Elliot alone until things got resolved. That meant taking unpaid time off from work, which Gaby would surely find out about, not to mention making rent tight next month. That was the silver lining to Lee not spending nights at his place: if he had to cancel his internet and television for a month, and maybe cut the heat off as well, at least she wouldn’t know about it.

  He started to turn to Rodney, but Elliot caught his arm. “Actually, can you give me a few minutes with him?” he asked. “I’ll catch up with you inside as soon as we’re done.”

  “What do you plan to talk about?” Lennox asked warily.

  “It’s nothing, it won’t take long. Go on, I’ll be right there. Mr. Castillion!” Elliot walked to the back door before Lennox could stop him, better now than he had when they first arrived, almost normally. “May I have a moment of your time?”

  Rodney raised an eyebrow in Lennox’s direction but responded politely enough, and Lennox took that as permission to postpone their confrontation. He dodged around them and went back into the building, stopping in the break room to wave through the office window at Rebecca, who was monitoring the system. She had Rodney’s round face and comfortable build, and if Lennox hadn’t seen her fieldstrip her Glock 19 in under twenty seconds, he wouldn’t have suspected she even knew what one was.

  It was a shame she was on a call; he could have used their conversation as an excuse not to go into the store and deal with Kevin’s exuberance head-on. Fortunately, his own phone provided one by ringing a moment later. He glanced at the caller and answered before the second ring. “Oliver?”

  “Who else would be calling you from this number?” his best friend asked.

  “A Nigerian oil sm
uggler holding you for ransom.”

  “Once. That happened once―will you never let me live it down?”

  “Probably not.” Oliver was one of the few people he could tease with impunity, he wasn’t about to relinquish that pleasure. “What’s up?”

  “The price of ammunition in the Sinai Peninsula, but you don’t care about that.”

  “Not at all.”

  “I tried,” Oliver said with a dramatic sigh. “Lord knows I tried to make a businessman out of you. You’re just resistant to anything remotely interesting.”

  It said something about the strength of their relationship that they could joke about this now. For years Lennox had been carefully ignorant of Oliver’s business, and then, very briefly, he’d jumped into it feetfirst in an effort to forget his mistakes. But it wasn’t just deciding to battle his latent suicidal tendencies that had made Lennox decide to get out. There was illegal and then there was immoral, and Lennox wasn’t entirely sure where he categorized Oliver’s work. He’d only known he couldn’t keep doing it.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t give Oliver shit about it, though. “Really? Interesting? Three gun battles in six months, that’s interesting to you?”

  “It keeps the blood pumping, doesn’t it?”

  Lennox rolled his eyes. “Unless your blood is pumping out, you’d better have a reason for calling when you know I’m working.”

  “Are you rolling your eyes at me? That’s what you usually do when you’re delivering ultimatums.”

  “Oliver. Kind of busy here, so get to the point.”

  “Right. I have a layover in Denver two days from now at three in the afternoon. Would you like to meet me at DIA, get a beer?”