Arctic Floor

by Mark Aitken

  ‘ISAF head shed, in Kabul?’ said Gallen, knowing the headquarters compound well. ‘That’s NATO, not Agency.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Dale. ‘But not after the X Rotation.’

  Gallen thought about it; Rotation X had been a controversial reorganisation of the ISAF system in February 2007, in which member nations started to contribute their own forces in a ‘composite’ structure, rather than the old integrated NATO command. It was seen as Washington trying to insert its own strategy and operations under an international banner.

  ‘Well, after that, it was the sadists running the joint,’ said Dale, grinning at the military’s word for the Special Activities Division of the CIA. ‘Fucking Bank of Langley, my brother. Holy shit.’

  Gallen knew about the Agency’s SAD, their paramilitaries and political operators. They appeared in forward operations bases, kept to themselves and only referred to themselves by first names. And when they needed to be saved from their own ventures, people like Gallen’s Force Recon units and the Army’s Green Berets were sent out into the night to retrieve them.

  Standing in frustration, Gallen walked to the window and looked out over the rail yards. A police helicopter moved across the horizon in the distance.

  Something tweaked a vague memory. ‘Bank of Langley?’

  ‘Billions in cash, boss,’ said Dale. ‘Sadists were buying up the warlords, trying to speed up the end game.’

  ‘Just one big pool of deniable assassins, feeding at this lake of cash? That it?’

  Dale shrugged, still smiling to himself.

  ‘Forget about Kenny,’ said Gallen, bringing the conversation back. ‘You broke into my employer’s house and stole something. Where is it?’

  Dale deadpanned. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, boss.’

  ‘I can get Kenny in here.’

  ‘But you won’t.’

  ‘Okay, then let’s ask it another way,’ said Gallen, annoyed that Dale was wasting time. ‘Why the tail?’

  ‘Orders.’

  ‘Why? You’ve already got the Newport file.’

  Dale’s face creased in confusion. ‘Newport?’

  The floorboards creaked at the other end of the room. Gallen reflexively launched himself at the floor, rolling into the wall behind a storage cupboard as rifle fire whistled above his head.

  ‘Stop,’ yelled Dale, as Gallen pulled his SIG free of his waistband and shot at the door, where two men with rifles were posted. ‘Stop, Gerry, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you.’

  One of the shooters at the door seemed to sag from a leg shot. The other hesitated, allowing Gallen to find his feet and get a proper grip on the SIG. Standing, he moved sideways from behind the cupboards so he was behind Dale as he poured fire into the far doorway, forcing the remaining shooter to yield.

  Gallen estimated he had seven shots left in the fifteen-shooter. Standing slightly taller, he watched the door close as the door behind him opened: Winter.

  As Gallen tried to calm his breathing, the door at the far end of the room was thrown open once more, and as Gallen and Winter shot at it, a rifle muzzle pointed into the room and fired a burst on full auto. Throwing himself back to the cupboard as the splinters flew, Gallen heard the screaming whine of a helicopter outside the window.

  Standing slowly, he swapped a look with Winter, who crabbed down the other wall towards the shooters’ door.

  Holding his SIG in a cup-and-saucer grip, Gallen aimed it at the shattered window. Down on the concrete apron, two men—one of them limping—ran for the helo and jumped inside. Leaning out the jagged window and aiming, Gallen took five shots. The sixth created a spark off the rotors. As he steadied for the last shot, the helo lifted skywards, banking away into the clear Alberta skies.

  Struggling to get air into his lungs, Gallen walked towards Bren Dale, freezing as he stood over his former sergeant. Dale’s chest was torn open with a bullet wound, his eyes rolled permanently to the ceiling.

  ‘Everyone okay?’ said Gallen, checking himself as he said it.

  ‘Mr Kevlar isn’t so happy,’ said Winter, walking back from the shooters’ door, pulling up his shirt to examine a slug in his vest.

  Gallen gulped at a dry throat as he walked through to Mike Ford in the other room. ‘Where’s the white dude?’

  Ford pointed at the door flapping in the breeze.

  ‘Ran?’ said Gallen, moving to the door in time to see the man disappear behind an abandoned railway oil tanker.

  ‘Like a robber’s dog,’ said Ford, looking through the empty window pane at the retreating helicopter. ‘How’s Dale?’

  ‘Didn’t make it,’ said Gallen, still panting. ‘Get anything from your guy?’

  Ford and Winter swapped a look.

  ‘Well? This is turning into a cluster. I hope we got something.’

  ‘The bloke told us they didn’t take a file from Florita,’ said Ford. ‘And they aren’t investigating Oasis. Didn’t know what we were talking about.’

  ‘So who are they?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Winter, lighting a smoke as he scanned the rail yards. ‘But I think the lawyer dude is the boss.’

  ‘Why?’ said Gallen.

  ‘Before you got here, he wouldn’t let the black guy speak,’ said Ford. ‘Tried to do all the talking.’

  Gallen and Ford followed Winter towards Bren Dale’s sprawled body. Kneeling, the Canadian slit the flexi-cuffs on Dale’s wrists and motioned with his head for Ford to help him. They eased the large body to the floor and Gallen smoked as Winter meticulously went through the former Marine’s clothing and shoes. There was folded cash in his right chinos pocket, about $500 American and $380 Canadian. Winter handed it to Gallen and then pulled a set of keys from the left pocket.

  ‘Dale was the driver,’ said Winter, handing over the keys. The black plastic grip of the main key featured an oval decal for the Ford Motor Co., but the keys had no identification on them, not even a registration number.

  ‘There’ll be a dark Crown Vic somewhere near the motel,’ said Gallen, knowing that Winter already had it logged in his mind.

  Gallen and Ford watched in silence as Winter undressed and searched Bren Dale, the Canadian doing a thorough but unpopular job—in special forces, every dead and injured body was a potential gold mine of information. Because special forces was largely recon, you had to get used to inspecting clothes and then orifices to see what could be learned.

  Finding nothing, Winter walked to the kitchenette and washed his hands. ‘Your buddy’s working clean,’ he said, shaking off his hands and then wiping them on his jeans.

  Gallen looked down on the body, the USMC tattoo on Dale’s left pec destroyed by the fatal bullet. ‘You sure?’ he said.

  ‘No phone, no credit cards, no room key. Not even a watch.’

  ‘That’s pro,’ said Gallen.

  ‘That’s deniable,’ said Ford.

  ~ * ~

  CHAPTER 45

  After they’d searched around the motel for Dale’s car and come up empty, they met back in the room Winter had rented. Whoever was chasing Gallen had a professional clean-up team to go with the helo and spooks.

  Ford made coffee as Gallen tried to set them back on course. ‘So let’s go through it: about ten to midnight on the first night you’re in here, you watch a heavily built black man move along the lower level, duck into a maintenance alcove and then through the door? ‘

  ‘Right there,’ said Winter, standing and pointing through the muslin curtains at a janitor’s lock-up on the ground level.

  ‘So you give him a few minutes and then you pick up a small movement? ‘

  ‘See those bars, up high in the wall?’

  Gallen saw an air vent in the cinder blocks. ‘Yep.’

  ‘The white boy leaves about ten minutes later. I took that to be the midnight change-over,’ said Winter.

  ‘And what happens?’

  ‘Just before six in the morning, the white boy is back,’ said Ford, handing out coff
ees. ‘That was my shift.’

  ‘So you wake Kenny and move on them while they’re in the same room?’

  ‘That’s about it,’ said Ford. ‘The rest you know.’

  ‘We need an ID on this leader. He had to be staying nearby. What’s across the road?’

  ‘Another motel,’ said Winter.

  ‘Let’s rattle a cage,’ said Gallen.

  ~ * ~

  Winter was back in the car thirty-seven minutes later.

  As Ford accelerated into the traffic, Gallen leaned over his seat. ‘What we get?’

  ‘Found this.’ Pulling a white DVD from the inside pocket of his jacket, Winter handed it over. ‘Told the maid that the night manager had left my umbrella in the room behind the counter.’

  ‘So when she couldn’t find it, you just helped yourself?’

  ‘Something like that. Check the dates. I think that’s the CCTV for yesterday.’

  ‘Might be useful.’ Gallen handed the disc back to Winter. ‘We need something to play it on.’

  ‘In my bag,’ said Ford over his shoulder as they merged with traffic and got southbound on Crowchild.

  Winter pulled a black laptop from the side storage compartment of a Cordura overnight bag and booted up. Inserting the DVD, he manipulated the images back and forth, reverting to the ‘gallery’ function that allowed him to select views around the motel.

  ‘That’s Dale, right there,’ said Winter, turning the screen so Gallen could see. It showed a side view of the big man at a second-floor ice machine. He was dressed in a dark polo shirt and dark shorts and the time code had it as 11.52 pm.

  ‘Bren making a drink before he takes his surveillance shift?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Winter. ‘Let’s find his room.’

  Winter found another camera angle, froze the image and turned the screen for Gallen. It showed Bren Dale emerging from a motel door on the second level. The image wasn’t clear enough to see the number on the door.

  ‘Can we get it clearer, Mike?’ said Winter.

  ‘Yeah,’ said the Aussie. ‘Take a grab of the door, drop it into Photoshop and click on the button that says Resolve.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Winter, smiling as he shook his head. ‘You’re running Photoshop?’

  As they passed McMahon Stadium, Winter looked up. ‘Room number two-fifteen.’

  Keying his cell phone, Gallen asked directory for the Capitol Motel and waited for the connection.

  ‘Hi, John Green here, financial controller at Akron Precision Machinery, down in Ohio,’ said Gallen, giving his cheeriest mid-western greeting. ‘Could I speak with the manager of the Capitol Motel, please?’

  A woman named Lucinda Davies came on the line and Gallen introduced himself again. ‘Listen, wondering if you could help me with some housekeeping at this end?’ said Gallen.

  ‘Sure, Mr Green. What do you need?’

  ‘This is embarrassing,’ said Gallen. ‘I’m going through an electronic expenses claim from two of our salespeople who stayed with you last night, in room two-fifteen?’

  Gallen heard tapping on a keyboard. ‘Yes, two gentlemen stayed with us, under the name Simon Smith. Is that the party?’

  ‘Simon—that’s him,’ said Gallen. ‘Top guy in our Rockies division, but, well, this is nothing to boast about.’

  ‘I’ve seen it all before, Mr Green,’ said the manager. ‘If you’re asking me to help you with a fraud inquiry, I can certainly do that for our corporate clients. I mean, you’re paying the bills, right?’

  ‘That’s my point exactly, Lucinda,’ said Gallen. ‘Thank you for understanding.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘We’ve had this issue with salespeople claiming on a top-of-the-line rental vehicle, but they’re actually driving a little Toyota.’

  ‘Driving a hatchback, claiming for a Navigator?’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Gallen. ‘If I could get the vehicle rego they booked under, I can trace it back with the rental company. We have thirty-five reps on the road. This could be costing us thousands a week.’

  ‘Okay, Mr Green,’ said Lucinda. ‘The vehicle is a Cadillac Escalade, Colorado plates.’ She read out the plate number which Gallen transcribed on the back of a CAA map of Alberta.

  ‘But this is weird,’ said Lucinda. ‘You said Akron Precision something?’

  ‘Precision Machinery, yes,’ said Gallen.

  ‘Mr Smith paid with cash, but his card imprint was a Visa in the name of Royal Enterprises.’

  ‘Royal?’ said Gallen. ‘Umm, yeah. That’s our aviation parts division. Listen, thanks for the heads-up. I’m going to get my assistant to call back, set up an account with you guys. Might smooth things in the future.’

  Gallen hung up and thought about the conversation. ‘Kenny, go back to the security footage. Look for an Escalade with Colorado plates.’

  ‘Why does that ring a bell?’ Winter tapped at the laptop.

  ‘That white guy who escaped. One of the crew behind the Spanish bar in Del Rey? He’s travelling as Simon Smith and his Visa card is in the name of Royal Enterprises.’

  ‘You got a rego number? ‘

  ~ * ~

  They met the new recruit in a cafe on 8th Street south-west.

  From the three names Aaron had provided, Liam Tucker’s fitted best with what Gallen wanted for his fourth man: a retired Marine who’d served in Afghanistan and spent almost three years guarding high-ranking officers in Helmand Province before walking with his pension. Thirty-four years old, a little lost and openly glad to be sharing coffee with some military guys.

  ‘How’s the ‘burbs?’ said Winter after they’d made their greetings and been served their coffees.

  ‘Christ.’ Tucker whipped off his Orioles cap and ran his hand over his hair. ‘My brother gets me this job as a mortgage broker and, holy crap, I don’t know how people do it.’

  ‘Gotta have stamina for them office jobs,’ Ford smiled. ‘All the incoming from behind.’

  ‘Gets you between the shoulder blades,’ said Winter. ‘You worked personal security detail?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Tucker, sipping on the coffee and eyeing another table of customers who were hugging and calling each other darling. ‘Worked PSD convoys, mainly out of D-2, and up to Marjah. All the pleasure spots.’

  ‘Busy up there?’ said Winter.

  ‘Some,’ said Tucker, not excited about it. ‘It was okay I guess, unless the routes leaked to Towelie, and suddenly there’s no such thing as an abandoned car or a rock on the roadside. It’s IED alley.’

  ‘But you were doing an electrical trade,’ said Gallen. ‘Before you transferred to an oh-three.’

  Liam Tucker turned and looked at him, and Gallen gave him a wink. An 03 occupational speciality—known as an MOS in the Corps—was a combat position like a mortar man, a rifleman or machine gunner. A Marine smart enough to demand an electrical trade did not generally switch to an infantry MOS. It translated to no career when he signed off.

  ‘Shit,’ said Tucker, slumping back in his chair, slapping his cap on his leg.

  ‘Didn’t have something to do with this concussion?’ said Gallen.

  Winter sat up. ‘The what?’

  ‘It’s in his file,’ said Gallen. ‘But let’s ask Liam.’

  Shaking his head, Tucker looked beaten. ‘Okay, I was two years in and I got concussed playing football. I recovered but I weren’t seeing colours so well.’

  Mike Ford laughed. ‘So you couldn’t see if a wire was yellow or red?’

  Tucker fiddled with his cap. ‘You know what the Corps’s like, Gerry. They find you’re colour blind and the clipboards take over.’

  Gallen nodded. He knew about that particular bureaucratic hell. ‘So you skipped the doctors and became a machine gunner?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And then you’re working personal security? ‘ said Gallen. ‘Why? ‘

  ‘ ‘Cos I was tapped for PSD after my first tour in Afghanistan,’ said Tucker
. ‘They needed gunners. I trained in Florida and they threw me in.’

  ‘You okay?’ said Gallen. ‘I mean, after the shit?’

  ‘Never did drugs, stopped drinking whisky,’ said Tucker. ‘Got a divorce. That what you mean?’

  ‘No psych?’

  ‘No, sir.’