Page 25 of 72 Hours

I think we initially tried to be civil, but the long hours of boredom took their toll. The agents we relieved were yawning after their night shift, and after a while on our own, we weren’t much better. The whole exercise was a final check by the Team, helping out the Department, and just in case some of the external contractors turned out to be less discreet than we hoped. We had bugs in all the relevant places, including their own warehouses and offices, picking up their conversations. That morning, though, it seemed that most of the heavy work had already been done, and any activity at the warehouse was nothing more than the shouts and crude jokes of workmen. Occasionally we heard the creaking of temporary office furniture being dismantled. We sat in a seedy upstairs room in an abandoned unit across the industrial estate with nothing to entertain us but a portable radio link, and we nursed our resentment. Well, that’s what I did.

The tension wasn’t going to die down any time soon. It’d been a miserable night, and now we sat for hours in the early morning, waiting for something or nothing to happen. The place was cold and damp, and the filth around us implied that it had been empty for months. We were both tired, and I soon got a cramp in my left calf. The flask of coffee was drunk far too soon—Niall took the last cup—and there was no food left for a guy like me who’d skipped breakfast. The final straw was when my numbed fingers dropped the radio for the third time. After that, the reception was so bad it sounded like Brad was talking through crispy corn flakes.

Up until then, Niall’s only conversation had been to do with the damp and the dust around us, but now he suddenly seemed to snap. “You need to keep your mind on the job in hand.”

“Not professional enough for you?” I fired back. “See me as some kind of an amateur compared to you?”

He stared at me angrily. “What the hell do you care what I see?”

In all honesty, I think the aggression between us was mainly due to the miserable situation we were in but to me, at that precise moment, he was dredging up the horror of the attack all over again—and my less than glorious part in it all.

“That’s crap. I’m not getting drawn into this, just so you can go another round against me, you and all the Team and their fucking dog!”

“Feeling a touch of paranoia, Tanner? No one’s picking on you. That’s nonsense, and you know it.”

“Nonsense?” I bristled. “Sums me up, eh? Careless. Unreliable.” Worthless.

He shook his head, impatient. “Yes, I think you let yourself down sometimes, but you won’t listen to what I think. It’s easier for you to go for the cheap shot. You’re always speaking for me, as if you reckon you know what I really think.”

“Got to do that,” I ground out. We were both half out of our uncomfortable seats by now, the surveillance and the radio all but forgotten. “Because you eke out so fucking little for me to go on.”

“I’m not like you, Tanner. I don’t feel the need to validate everything with endless words. And anyway, why the hell should I need to? I tell you what needs to be told.”

“So now you’re speaking for me, eh?” I was perilously close to a yell by this time. “Keep MacKay on a need to know basis, right? He’s only another colleague, and not one you think you can rely on.”

“Yeah?” He’d raised his voice as well. “Nowadays, you’re not around long enough for me to know one way or the other. Look at how you just slid back in last night, not a word for days, no sign of you at all. If you don’t see any need to keep me in the loop, that’s fine. Life seems to be one long party to you.”

“Now who’s the paranoid one?” I protested. “I’m not around because I don’t enjoy seeing the look on your face when I am.”

“You’re not around long enough to see anything!” He was really incensed, but I couldn’t see past my own fury and distress and had no intention of backing down. “Don’t accuse me of the very thing you’re doing yourself! You pride yourself on your honesty and openness, but it’s pretty damned convenient that excludes your own behaviour.”

We glared at each other for one poised, poignant second as if we’d suddenly reached the exact same level of anger and hurt and confusion. And then—even as I watched it happen, with horror and some amazement that I could lose control quite so spectacularly—I laid right into him.

I wasn’t thinking straight by then. I had a huge pile of umbrage smouldering in my heaving breast, and it was itching to get out and be heard. I’d always thought I could rein myself in, if need be. Perhaps I didn’t see the necessity anymore, or perhaps I’d just had enough. Perhaps I was—just for that brief moment—completely insane. It was wearing me down, his lack of empathy and tolerance, and his inability to communicate in ways that were familiar to the rest of the human race—hell, I think I suggested he’d been some kind of alien changeling since birth. I said it was a pity he’d had to lose a chunk of skin before he realised it, but it was obvious I was nothing but a raw edge in his smooth life, and if he couldn’t get over that and accept me as I was, there was no fucking point in going on together. Basically, I said, we had nothing more to say to each other, no reason to keep pretending, no duty of care anymore.

I halted my rush of words, drawing a sudden, painful breath.

“This is the one time I welcome you speaking for me,” he growled. “That’s exactly how I feel too.”

It still hit me hard, to hear it aloud. From him.

“Okay, fine,” I replied quickly, fiercely, if only to keep the words flowing over the lump in my throat. “But if you want other company, at least be honest about it, if honesty’s so fucking important to you.”

He stared at me then, eyes wide and accusing, and—though I didn’t want to see it right then—hurt.

And then I really lost it and accused him of fucking Joe on the side.

​​​Chapter 11 – Tuesday 09:45

The argument began with words; it escalated swiftly to fists. Shit, the guy could land a punch! Niall’s first crack to my jaw sent me sprawling. Every tooth rattled in my head, and my eyes couldn’t focus. But I was so fucking angry that he’d hit me, I got straight back up and pitched in my defending blow. I caught him kind of unawares, too, and I was ridiculously pleased to see his head snap back from my own fist connecting.

We wrestled each other, eyes blazing, breath rasping in our chest as we struggled to speak, most words coming out as incoherent grunts. And I kept bouncing back, kept plowing in with my own efforts, despite the increasingly fierce knocks and the pain in my jaw. I was not going to go down again, of that I was sure—and I think I was yelling it, too, most of the time.

Like anyone was going to let the situation continue like that.

It all ended with Joe hammering hard on the door, then kicking it open and racing in to break us up. He’d been called over from the conference centre itself, and someone told me later he ran all the way, outstripping the other personnel who followed him. In the background we had Brad screaming at us through the radio to break contact because every word was being broadcast—albeit through crackly cereal—both to the Department and to the warehouse we were meant to be watching. But still we fought. It took a couple of Joe’s ninja-type minions to hold me back while he personally pinned Niall to the opposite wall, shouting into Niall’s face to pull himself together. Someone smashed the malfunctioning radio, and all the voices in the room were silenced. Then all we could do was pant painfully and glare and spit at each other like a couple of frustrated alley cats.

I don’t remember much else of that time. Other agents appeared in and out of the room. Pale, shocked, and inquisitive faces stared through the doorway at us. I heard sharp, muffled words from another radio. Eventually Judith appeared like the Wrath of God herself, bearing the twin divine gifts of her anger and disgust—and immediate suspension of us both from the Project Team.