Page 59 of 72 Hours

He glared at me, still not answering. “I know you have a gun, Tanner. Niall does, too, of course. Throw them out here to me.”

I hesitated. He wrenched at Sheri’s binding, and she gave a soft cry. I reached to the back of my jeans and pulled my gun out of my waistband. I threw it over to where he stood. After a brief, tense moment, Niall did the same. Greg nudged them with his foot and then kicked them over towards Junk’s trailer. They slithered in the dust and came to rest just under the steps. They wouldn’t be seen unless someone was specifically looking.

“Simon?” I had a tight edge to my voice. “Don’t fuck with me, Greg.”

He shrugged slightly. His eyes slid sideways to look at Sheri, then his gaze snapped back to me. “He’s safe.”

“He’s not here,” Niall said, his voice low. “Why should we believe you?” I could feel the tension vibrating through his body.

Greg stared back at Niall. “Niall Sutherland. Another of Judith’s finest. Guess you’ll have to take my word for it, won’t you?” He tugged sharply at Sheri, and she stumbled a little. “Just the two of us. Deal with it.”

“So why are you here, Greg?” I pulled his attention back to me. “To tell us all about your campaign of horror and violence?”

His eyes narrowed. I wasn’t sure he could tell sarcasm from admiration. From me, anyway. “There are things I want you to know. Both of you. Things you need to know, why you deserve what’s happened to you. What’s going to happen to you. Telling you how stupid you’ve been.”

“You mean about the bombs? The booby traps? The poisons by post?” Niall sounded a little too sharp for my liking. I didn’t want Greg spooked. Not just yet, anyway.

“Cool it, Niall.” I felt his growl of frustration, but I didn’t turn to meet his look. “They didn’t work, though, Greg, did they? The campaign has been fitful, to say the least. We’re still here, you can see that. That’s something I need to tell you.”

He scowled. I was provoking him, but carefully, I hoped. “You shouldn’t be here, Tanner. The rifle should’ve taken you out, if I hadn’t been distracted by that fucking dog. And then the bomb... I still can’t understand how it didn’t destroy the whole damned trailer.”

“You have that fucking dog to thank for that as well,” I said dryly. I watched him carefully, but at the same time I was measuring up the distance between us; the hold he had on Sheri; the stability of his grip on his gun. I suspected that Niall was doing the same. “How’d you get the dog out of the way in the first place?”

A fleeting smile chased over his face, an important assessment of his mood. “I had a good look around the park when we brought Sutherland here that first time. The damned dog was keeping an eye on me, and it was obvious the big guy was his owner. I noticed those gaudy scarves he wears, and there were a couple hanging out of a back window of the trailer. So while I was waiting for you to finish your chat with Judith, I borrowed one. Easy to do it on the pretext of strolling around the site, checking security. I reckoned it’d come in handy if I came back to the site. Which I did, of course.” He moistened his lips, eager to tell us how clever he was. “It seemed ridiculously easy to plant a bomb under a trailer, especially in a dump like this. So I came back early yesterday morning, to set it up. The scarf was really useful then, you see. It lulled the stupid brute. He recognised the smell and half-trusted me. It was enough to get him over to my car. I fed him some meat full of sedatives and dragged him in when he started to collapse.”

“No one saw you?”

He unconsciously lifted his chin. He was damned proud of his resourcefulness. “No, of course not. I parked the car behind some empty trailers. No one was around. But I admit it all took longer than I hoped. He’s damned heavy, you know? I only had time to drop him in the warehouse across the way. I’d hoped to take him to the docks and lose him in the river once and for all.”

I shivered slightly. I think Sheri whimpered under her gag.

“Then I came back to set the bomb, but by the time I was ready to get the hell out of here, you turned up and got in the way. So I thought there was no harm in taking you out a little ahead of schedule.” He looked at my shoulder pointedly.

I shrugged, making a huge effort to make it look as limber as the other one. “You missed.”

He caught my eye and smirked. “Not completely.”

I couldn’t answer; couldn’t deny it.

“You made yourself out to be a clumsy novice on the shooting range,” came Niall’s voice beside me. He sounded calm. I think he’d tuned in to my own tone. “Which are you? Unskilled—or unlucky?”

Greg frowned. “I’m okay. But I admit I didn’t want you thinking I was any kind of a shooter. It served my purposes to be thought of as a dumb newbie.”

And maybe you really were crap, anyway. But that was barely enough to console me today.

“And what the fuck do you care?” he continued, belligerently. “At this range, I won’t miss either of you.” He lifted his arm and aimed the gun speculatively at us.

“That’s fine,” I said quickly. “We get the picture, okay?”

He glanced back at me, his eyes wary but with a flicker of self-satisfaction. “You’d still never have caught me. You were down, and your partner was bent over you, and there was no one else around. I couldn’t think where the hell everyone had gone, but it meant I could make an easy getaway. I was on my way back to the car when that dog came bounding back.” He looked both angry and amazed. “Can you believe it? The idiots from this park had been right on my heels, searching for him. For a pet. I mean, how stupid is that?” I reserved judgment; I assumed he wasn’t looking for an answer. “I had barely enough time to hide the gun, then the crazed beast bit my arse and I was hauled into your trailer by its owner. Damned guy looks as mad as the dog.”

I saw Sheri’s red-rimmed eyes widen angrily. “Shut up, Greg,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow, grinning insolently at me. “It didn’t matter in the end. It took me a few hours, but I got away from you again. Easily.” He smiled then, and I was shocked to see the contrast between this slice of malice and his pleasant grin of previous times. “And I set the timer on the bomb on my way out. Plus I gathered a hostage.”

“So clever,” I murmured.

He took my words at face value. It was like he swelled up with pride. “You never thought I could do all this, did you? But it’s served my purposes to be seen as the loyal little sidekick all the time I’ve been at the Team. A bit of a kid, no spunk, no threat. I sat and whimpered in that pathetic trailer of yours, and neither of you had any idea who you were holding. When Cissy told you she had an e-mail from Simon requesting me back at base, you never thought twice about letting me go.”