Dreamspinner Press Year Four Greatest Hits

by Felicia Watson

  Simon ignored my sarcasm. “Niall mustn’t have any other external interaction. He mustn’t be seen, mustn’t leave here until we give clearance.”

  “You want me to sit through the briefings on security again?” I thought my voice was steady enough, but Simon frowned.

  “No, of course not. Don’t be so damned sensitive. I know you know your job. I just wanted to stress some specific things.” He wriggled on the couch and glanced over at the unnaturally still man standing beside him.

  So did I. Tall, a little slimmer than I remembered, dark hair looking pretty unkempt. The shadow of a cut under his chin. My gut shuddered a little. I didn’t think it was because I’d missed a couple of meals this week.

  Simon glanced back and caught sight of my scowl. “Cut me some slack here, Tanner. We’re all very disturbed by this. Like I said, we need to support each other.” His voice was just the right side of pleading, just the right side of appealing to my better nature. He negotiated well, but of course he’d met his match in me. My better nature was snoozing in a corner, wrapped in a blanket, hibernating for the season and dreaming of Florida beaches. I think Simon could see that in my eyes. “Perhaps none of us are thinking as clearly as we should. You’ll need to discuss your own arrangements with Niall, work out your own timetable. And you’ll need twenty-four seven contact between the pair of you, of course, to monitor this.”

  That’s when Niall’s head jerked up, when his eyes met mine at last. His frown was reflected in the depths of his eyes.

  My mouth went dry. “Twenty-four seven contact,” I echoed. “I rather think that’s the last thing I need. And though I’m the one you might expect to be kind of prickly, I’m guessing your colleague feels much the same way.”

  Simon stood, rather abruptly. He looked from me to Niall, and then back at me. His shoulders tensed. Guess he recognized the daggers drawn in two sets of dark pupils. I think I saw Judith’s hand stretch out slightly, as if to hold him back. I did notice that he hadn’t drunk a whole lot of his tea.

  His next words were bitter. “Okay, so maybe I wanted this to work just a little too much. But look at the pair of you! What the hell made me think that it would?”

  I turned my head away, losing eye contact with all of them, trying to tune him out. He made me feel ashamed, I admit it. A brat. But I was in no mood today for Simon Wagner, the Project Team’s man who “got things done.” Couldn’t he see that?

  But he didn’t let up. “Dear God, you’re glaring like gladiators at each other. As if there’s a danger you’ll kill each other before any enemy has the time to track you down!”

  And then Judith Harrington herself pitched in. The slender, elegantly attractive, dark blonde woman who currently sat on my couch and sipped at a stale tea, more bitter than my shriveled emotions. A woman with a black belt in martial arts, which no one would ever guess from her quiet, controlled attitude unless perhaps they were on the receiving end. The keenest brain that had ever thrashed me at chess, and the woman I’d listened to—been directed by—for a long and very interesting time. The woman I’d been surprised to see here today, in person. Guess that’s what made me realize this whole damned farce was real.

  Her voice was sharp, and the reproof was aimed at me. “Tanner MacKay, I don’t want to have to pull rank, but I will if I have to. This is for the good of the Team, not individuals, do you hear me? I’ve worked damned hard to get what support I can, and I won’t let something like this close us down. This directive has been unofficially sanctioned by certain sympathetic channels in the Department, and if you want any chance of ever working in the field again—in any capacity—you’ll do your very best to cooperate and keep Niall Sutherland safe. Do you understand?”

  There was a sudden, awkward pause. You could’ve heard the last drop of condensation drip down in the kitchen on to the linoleum.

  “Okay,” I said, slowly. “No problem. I understand all too well. I’m not aware that you—of all people—ever had any problems with plain speaking.” We both knew the insouciance was a ploy of mine, to play for time, to retain my dignity. I was actually quite shaken by her vehemence. Judith’s management of us had always been calm and reasonably voiced. “But you are asking me to put my home on the line, right? To come out of my quiet, anonymous little world—to offer it back to your organization, with all the risk that currently seems to attract.”

  “You’re still officially an employee of the Project Team,” she snapped.

  “And still on suspension, right?” I fired back. “Still on much-reduced pay and benefits, right?”

  Her eyes grew darker and she flushed. “It was your choice, MacKay. We could’ve discussed the financial implications. But as far as I remember, you told me to shove the benefits up my ass and twist them hard. Next I knew, your address was ‘gone away’. And yes, you’re still on suspension, though that’s open to final review in a couple of weeks’ time.” She caught my angry gaze and held it fearlessly for a moment. Then gradually, her expression softened. “If you’d given me a chance, Tanner, I would have told you to stay and see it out. You just weren’t listening to me at the time.”

  I didn’t want her pity. I had my own, right? But Judith had always been a damned good friend to me.

  “Tanner, I know it was tough for you back then, but this is what we have to do, now. And we need you to help. We can look at this as a partial return to active duty, if that’s what you want, and we’ll review the salary issue. If you can work with us here….”

  “You’re not the one I’m sharing my personal space with, here,” I grunted.

  Simon laid a hand on my arm. It was a shock, being touched like that. He’d always enjoyed the friendship in the Team, the banter. The comradeship. Maybe I’d missed that, the past few months. But I didn’t think I was in any mood to debate it either way.

  “Tanner, it’s obvious this is difficult for you. But like Judith says, we need your help! We can’t trust any other Departmental locations at the moment. Joe’s in hospital and Brad is isolated, out in the field with no support. Judith has junior staff with very justifiable fear of stepping outside their front doors and the Department watching our every move from the safety of their plush governmental offices, wondering and waiting to see if this brings us down. We must stop this, and fast. All the good work we’ve done in the Project Team so far—we must protect that, as well as ourselves.” I could hear the urgency in his voice. “Niall has nothing left and nowhere to go! He needs you, Tanner.”

  He’s going to love that summary of his situation, of his life. The pressure from Simon’s warm hand was very unnerving. Once upon a long time ago, I’d been as committed to the job as he had. You hear that, Niall? Apparently you have nothing left! Except this….

  Except me.

  And so I turned back to face my new houseguest. Niall Sutherland. Man with the boxes, man with the need for my address.

  Niall. The man I’d crossed the state to avoid, whose proximity promised nothing now except contempt, the man I once said I didn’t want to see again until hell proverbially froze over, let alone offer a mug of tea.

  And he was staying in my home.

  Monday 06:30

  THE TRAILER park was still quiet in the early morning. Well, quiet in that the only background noise was a mixture of barking dog, the occasional raised voice over breakfast coffee, muffled through the walls of adjacent trailers, and the melancholic turning over of a dying car battery. The usual. No one got up around here to rush to work in the city.

  The guys from the Team left with the same care and secrecy that they’d used to arrive. Cissy came over quickly, directing them back to the company car—a dull-colored vehicle with its plates artfully obscured. It had been parked around the back of the gravel heap. I’d forgotten to warn her that was where some of the residents drew their scrap, utilizing a random collection of vehicles that were abandoned or just carelessly parked. Anything left unattended for more than a few hours vanished or became unrecognizable by morning
. I surreptitiously checked it still had all four wheels.

  Greg was beside a nearby trailer and came running over to help shield Judith and Simon, presumably watching out for any sudden threat in this decidedly unregulated area. I laughed aloud when a large Rottweiler poked its head around the trailer after him, snapping aggressively. The kid staggered back in surprise, but it certainly put a spring in his step.

  Simon was the last to leave me, but also the most eager. His pale color had deteriorated to something closer to parchment. He was worrying about Brad, I knew it. We all knew it. Brad would feel the same, if the situation were reversed. It had been a bit of a joke when I first joined the Team, the way that the two of them seemed joined at the hip. Not physically, you understand, but in the way that they understood each other without a load of chat, in the way that they cared for each other. They didn’t make much of an issue of it, keeping anything they shared outside work pretty discreet. But they weren’t making excuses, either. When I got to know what genuine guys they were, and after I had some experience of my own… well, it wasn’t such a joke then, was it? I envied them, to tell you the truth.

  And so off went almost all of my visiting delegation, rolling quietly through the back streets, returning to the Department with their Mission Nursemaid—or whatever they called it in memos that were probably never officially acknowledged—well and truly accomplished.

  When I turned back from seeing them off, I found Niall hadn’t moved from the corner of my room. A narrow shaft of morning light sneaked through the broken blind, dissecting the shadow of his body. For a few long, silent moments, we both stared at some disturbed particles of dust that glittered within it. When they settled at last on the cushions of the couch, I cleared my throat. This was my place, after all.

  “No one’s going to steal any of your stuff. You can leave it there and sit down at least. You make the place look untidier than it already is.” My voice sounded very brittle in the suddenly empty room. My gut was churning. I’d abandoned my tea a long time ago, it seemed, and I couldn’t remember if I’d eaten anything since last night’s supper. The phone call had come from Judith less than two hours ago. It felt like weeks.

  And—dammit!—I was still wondering where she’d found my cell number when I’d changed providers twice in the last three months, and both times under different names.

  Niall’s sigh sounded like it was dragged out of him. He shifted on one foot, then the other, but he still didn’t sit down. “I feel the same way you do, if that’s any consolation to you,” he said at last, his voice thick with exhaustion and something more like anger. “I tried to find someone else, tried to convince them I’d be okay somewhere else. You know what Judith’s like, though.”

  I didn’t answer that one. It was unnerving enough, having to listen to him. The voice was just as I remembered. Just the same as my late-night dreams, the nightmare’s mockery, snagging at my nerve endings. Fuck. For the first time, I wished the others would come back. At least I could be distracted by other, less disturbing sounds. I wondered why basic training had never covered this particular scenario.

  Niall looked like he was struggling with the conversation. I felt the wave of frustration from him as clearly as I read the clench of his fist. “Tanner, we have to cope with this, right? Just for the bare minimum of time. You have to keep a low profile too. We’ll have to sort out some compromise.”

  Obviously “fuck off and leave me alone” wasn’t an option. Then I despised my sudden, childish aggression. My social skills were obviously lapsing. Perhaps I was becoming the loud-mouthed boor that many accused me of being in the past.

  Perhaps—just at that moment—I couldn’t care less.

  NIALL SAT down at last because even his cast-iron will couldn’t keep him up indefinitely. I drew the stool out from under the kitchen counter and dragged it into the living room, sitting down on it somewhat gracelessly, while he settled himself down on to the couch. He moved gingerly.

  I felt a familiar buzz inside me as I watched his movements. Partly because my job had been to pay attention to the people around me at all times, and partly for other, more intimate reasons. He was nursing an injury to his left leg, probably the hamstring, and it looked like he had some hearing restriction in his left ear. That was apart from the external cuts and bruises. My appraisal of his condition was swift and instinctive, even as I hated myself for bothering.

  “So how bad was it?”

  He looked up quizzically, and for a moment my breath caught in my throat. It was the way that his broad chin thrust up, in a familiar, defiant move; the way that his dark brown eyes widened as they met my focus. He didn’t ask me what I was talking about because he knew, of course. Damned smart, as always. “You want to know?”

  “Asked, didn’t I?” Christ, was this how it was going to be?

  His voice dropped to a low monotone. I knew it was his way of controlling his emotions, but it still grated. “It was bad. It happened yesterday, early evening, about 19:25. It was pure luck that we were on our way to get some takeout and had just left the apartment, taking the stairs. Otherwise we’d have been caught in the full blast….” He paused, swallowing heavily.

  We? “You and Joe, that is.”

  He tensed. “Yes. We’d spent the early evening checking out some toxin reports from the Department.”

  I nodded. Didn’t trust myself to speak, which was lucky because Niall continued, regardless. “The whole rear of the building was damaged, though my kitchen took the worst of it. It blew a hole in the wall, demolished the room and knocked the impact through to all the other rooms. The explosives must have been set in the back yard, probably attached to the fire escape that leads up to my floor. There was no evidence of anyone there, so it was obviously on a timer. I’d guess a series of connected detonators around a central charge, small but heavy-duty explosives, staggered for maximum effect. It’s a style that some terrorists and saboteurs use.” I wondered if he was cataloguing the materials used; considering the likely suppliers. Weaponry was his specialty, after all.

  “Joe got the brunt of it?”

  “Yes. The apartment door blew out on to the corridor and hit him. He fell down a couple of flights.”

  “Anyone else hurt?”

  He shook his head. “It was entirely localized. The police are giving out the message it was some kind of gas explosion. They don’t want anyone thinking it’s terrorism. But it was directed specifically at us, no doubt of that. The charges were camouflaged into the brickwork, so it had been placed over a period of days. There’d obviously been detailed surveillance of the site. Whoever set it had seen enough comings and goings to be able to establish who was at home and who wasn’t. I haven’t been officially deployed for the last few months, of course, so I was in a more familiar routine.” It was as if he were giving his official statement all over again. “My… the apartment is mostly rubble. It’ll be months before it’s safe to go back, let alone anyone live there.”

  My pain was startlingly keen; that was the only excuse I had for my puerile response. “I forgot to return your spare key. Guess it won’t be such an issue now.”

  “Cheap shot,” he said, in a very tight voice.

  “Cheap? That’s me all over.” Comeback was automatic. “As you were so fucking eager to tell me, last time we were together.”

  “As far as I remember, that was the only damned thing you wanted to hear, MacKay!”

  A-ha! There was spirit left in him after all. I bit my lip, knowing I could take him on, knowing I could escalate an argument beyond belief in short, stunning seconds.

  But I looked at the dark weariness in his eyes, and I didn’t do it. I dragged my control back from the brink, teasing nonchalance back into my voice. “Well, you’re out of there now, and more or less in one piece. The Department will get you another place, I expect.”

  His eyes narrowed. With anger? Suspicion at my sudden change of mood? “Sure they will.” His voice had calmed, though I could see his fi
sts clench again, as if with the effort. “Judith has put in the request already. They’ve authorized her to evaluate a couple of other potential properties, from the point of view of security. Then I can move on. I mean, the apartment was fairly small, in a quiet area, no striking features. There are plenty of others on the market that are similar. It was only a place to live, right?”

  I stared at him. “Right.”

  He made a sudden, jerky movement that startled me, and his leg knocked against my small card table. Judith’s abandoned tea mug rattled, the reflections from the overhead strip lighting shivering in the surface of the liquid. Niall righted the mug with exaggerated care, but the scrape of the china on the plastic tabletop was still too sharp for my ears.

  It seemed to affect him just as badly. He lifted his hands as if to bury his head in them, but then he paused and let them fall back to his lap. His voice hitched up a couple of notches on the volume control. “But it wasn’t just a place to live, Tanner. It was my home. So maybe I’ve had to move around in the past few years. I’ve learned to be ready to mobilize at a moment’s notice, never let my roots go very deep. But that place….”

  “Don’t.” I knew he’d know what I meant. I knew he’d ignore me, too.

  “Not just where I lived,” he persisted. “It was more than that.” His voice faded and stopped. Despite his darker coloring, he looked damned pale. I suspected he was still in some kind of shock.

  I sighed. This was my living room, right? But it seemed an alien place right then, miles away and perching at the wrong end of a telescope. There wasn’t much to distract me except the ratty furniture; I’d never been one to collect trinkets of any kind. Even the pictures had only been sheets of advertising color that had just caught my eye. There was nothing and no one but Niall to draw my attention. It had been a while since I’d heard him raise his voice like that. And for once, I agreed with everything he said.