Page 49 of 72 Hours

Niall’s hand tightened on my wrist, stopping me reaching for it. “How come you can’t reach anyone else’s cell, but someone’s...”

“...reached me?” I stared at him. “Niall, they could be using another phone, or the interference could have cleared. We won’t know unless we answer, will we? But if there’s a chance it’s Judith, calling us from the hospital...”

He nodded and lowered his hand. I reached for the cell and flipped it open.

The voice on the line was the last one I’d thought to hear. “Tanner? Are you okay? I didn’t know who... who might answer this number.”

I pressed the loudspeaker button again so that Niall could hear as well. “You mean, whether I’d been blown into enough pieces to sparkle in the heavens or not? No, I survived. Niall too. He’s making a fucking habit of rising from the ashes of various explosions. Guess someone might be really pissed at that, don’t you think, Simon?”

Simon’s voice gave a low gasp, like a mix between fear and amusement. “Thank God. Same old Tanner.” The line was clear enough, though I couldn’t hear any other voices. There was the background noise of a siren, probably out in traffic. And the distant whine of jet engines, like a plane was passing low overhead.

“Simon...”

“He said the trailer would be destroyed by now, but I was to check whether this line was still operational. Whether there were any loose ends to tie up.”

I didn’t think I was keen on being called a “loose end.” “Who said? You mean Greg?”

“Yes.” Simon didn’t ask any of that unnecessary nonsense, like “How did you find out,” “What final clue led you to the perp,” or anything like that. We weren’t in a fictional detective story here. Niall’s eyes had brightened, and he pressed up against me to listen in more carefully.

“Where are you, Simon?”

“Can’t say.” Simon’s voice was guarded. “Greg wants to speak to you.” His next word was a whisper. “Brad?”

“He’s safe,” I quickly replied. I heard a soft exhalation of breath on the other end. “Does Greg have you covered?”

“Yes.” Simon started to speak quickly. “I followed some clues in Brad’s notes to try to find him, to try to find what was going on, but I had no time to let him know what I’d found—who I’d found. Don’t try anything rash. You must protect yourselves. I’ll sort it out somehow—” His voice broke off abruptly, as if the phone had been snatched from his hand.

I swore to myself. I could have done with some clue as to exactly where he was, what state Greg was in, what weapons he had. Anything.

But Simon Wagner was another guy who didn’t spend too much time out in the field. I felt chilled inside at the thought of what Greg might be doing with him.

“Tanner MacKay?”

I recognised the young voice, of course. There was less of a whine underlying it than before. “Let Simon and the girl go, Greg, and then we can talk, okay?”

There was a scuffling noise at the other end, and the voice sounded furious. “Not okay. Not okay at all. You should be under rubble by now. You and your partner. All of you. I’m not letting anyone go until this is all finished properly.”

“Things not going according to plan, Greg?”

“Shut the fuck up. You had no idea who was doing this, did you? I had the whole lot of you fooled. That was a plan, wasn’t it?”

Until we found him out. “What is it you want?” I noticed that Niall was leaving me to do the negotiation, which was fine by me. Personally, I’d have liked to take the kid and rip his head off, nice and slowly and with a side order of spicy relish, but fuck, that’d maybe have to wait. “Why are you doing this, Greg?”

“I said, shut up. You’re nothing but trouble, Tanner. Damned pity I missed your head with that shot. I don’t know why Sutherland didn’t get out then, why he stuck around you. But it’s all the better for me, I guess, because I’ve got you two in one place, everyone else in another. And now I have some bargaining chips to keep you there.”

“Let them go, Greg,” I repeated. “They’re no good to you.” I hoped I kept the tension out of my voice. “I mean, we’re not interested in negotiating for them. The girl... well, she’s expendable of course. She’s nothing to us. And Simon knows what this business is like. He’s just an agent, same as us all. He knows he’s on his own.”

I heard the indignation flaring in Greg’s tone. “That’s fucking typical of you—of all of you!—abandoning him like that. When he’s the one who keeps it all rolling, the only one who understands what’s going on.”

I glanced at Niall and raised an eyebrow. Greg’s behaviour was very erratic. His aggressive language jarred with our perception of the kid we’d previously thought of as respectful, timid, and basically ineffectual. Yet his defence of Simon was interesting. I spoke back into the phone as calmly as I could. “Simon thinks highly of you, Greg, we all know that. So why don’t you let him go, and he can speak for you? We’ll sort this out between us.”

“No way.” Greg laughed, a short, sharp, scornful sound. Wasn’t I the one who’d said he wasn’t a complete fool?

“So you tell me,” I said. “You can speak for yourself, right? That’s if you can make us listen. If you can make us care.”

I made myself sound as scornful as I could. I realised what other nuance I’d heard in Greg’s voice. Not just anger, not just resentment. It was pleading, too—the need to justify, to boast. Wasn’t he just itching to do that?

“Shut up,” he snapped back. “Yes, of course I can speak for myself. None of you have the right to tell me what to do. And you’d better listen.” His voice sank in volume as if he’d turned his head away for a moment. Then it returned as strongly. “You’ll both stay there until I arrive. I’ve got things to say to you in person.”