Dance With the Enemy (22 page)

Logan and Grainger lay on the bed, naked, their bodies entwined.

‘That was unexpected,’ Logan said. The same words he had said to himself yesterday when she’d left him stranded by the side of the road, not long after they’d met. This time, though, he didn’t feel foolish about it. Not at all. He was buzzing. He felt amazing.

‘Was it?’ Grainger said.

‘Unexpected? Yeah. Not that it hadn’t crossed my mind the first time I saw you pointing that gun at me.’

She hit his arm playfully and both of them smiled.

‘You like that sort of thing, do you?’ she said.

‘I’ll try everything once.’

He’d not felt this relaxed for a long time. Not just in the last five months, but in years. All of a sudden, lying there in the bed, all of his troubles seemed so much further away. Not gone entirely, but at least momentarily appeased.

What was it about Grainger? He sensed something about her, like she had gone through so much suffering, much like he had. Maybe physically she hadn’t – the perfect skin which covered her entire body proved that much – but he could tell from the look in her eyes that she’d been hurt. And badly. And that meant that there was a connection between them, a shared pain, a bond on a much deeper level than he’d felt before. He had noticed that pained look in her when she’d first mentioned her dad to him. Though he suspected that her father’s death was only part of the story.

‘Well, I guess it was a
little
unexpected,’ she said, snuggling her head into him. ‘But in a good way.’

‘Definitely in a good way.’

She was lying on her side. Her fingers were running rings in the soft hairs in the centre of his otherwise smooth chest, her head resting on his shoulder. Her fingers moved to the scar below his right nipple that ran six inches down towards his bellybutton. He winced reflexively at first, not from physical pain, but from memory. With her light touch continuing to dance on his skin, he soon relaxed again.

‘It’s from a knife wound,’ he said, as though having one were the most normal thing in the world. ‘One of the oldest ones I have. Scars, I mean.’

‘How?’

‘From when I was a kid, a teenager. Let’s just say I hung out with the wrong crowd quite a bit.’

‘And the others?’ she asked.

‘Too many to tell.’

‘Try me.’

Did he want to do this or not? Grainger wouldn’t be the first woman he had told some of these stories to, but he had certainly never opened up to anyone about them on an emotional level. And the most recent scars, those that had come from his encounter with Selim, he had never spoken to anyone about.

But his scars, and the memories that went with them, told the story of who he was. They explained his life.

‘A lot of them are actually from back then,’ Logan began, taking the plunge, ‘when I was still a kid. Some of the smaller ones are even older than that one. Cigarette burns, belt buckles, forks.’

‘Forks?’

‘Yeah. This one here,’ he said, leaning forward and pointing to four small white circles on his back, ‘this was from a fork. There was a good centimetre or so of it in there. I pulled it out myself. My parents used to beat me pretty badly. My foster parents. Or at least my foster dad, Trevor, did. Did all kinds of shit to me. Gwenn, that was my foster mum, just used to watch and cry … but she never tried to stop him.’

He’d always resented her for that, even though he knew that she must have suffered at the man’s hands just as much as he and the other kids had. He’d spent five years with them, up until he was fifteen years old. By that time his foster dad no longer dared
to touch him. In the end it was Logan who was shipped out for the protection of Trevor, after Logan took it upon himself to give the man some comeuppance.

Grainger continued to work her hands around his body without saying a word. He didn’t know whether he should carry on talking or not.

He did.

‘That one there.’ He pointed at a scar on his left thigh, close to his groin. It looked like a starfish, the skin having been pulled inwards at awkward angles during healing to create what looked like the creature’s legs. ‘That one was the first time I got shot. I was twenty-two by that point, already on the job.’

‘That must have hurt like hell.’

No shit. They all had.

He’d been on a mission in Russia, on the trail of one of the original oligarchs a few years after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Like many others, the man he was after had forced his way to the top through a heady mixture of violence and corruption. His mistake, though, was in trying to take his brand of business management into the western world. Logan had eventually got his man following an armed siege of one of the man’s properties, which had been more like a barracks than a home. Logan had been shot in the process of trying to flee the property with the captured oligarch, before ultimately taking him into the custody of the Americans.

‘At the time, that was the most pain I’d ever felt,’ he said. ‘It took months for the limp to go. I’ve only been shot once since then, in my left arm.’ She moved her hand up to that scar, which he’d received in Poland, where he’d been on the case of a human trafficking gang. ‘That was even worse because of the bone damage. It took so long to recover that my arm was like a twig before I was finally able to use it again. The muscle had just disappeared through not being used. Since then I’ve tried to make sure I don’t get shot. Never did like hospitals.’

‘How old were you when you started this?’ she said. ‘Your job, I mean.’

‘I was seventeen,’ he said. The matter-of-fact tone of his voice may have suggested that he was nonchalant about it. But that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

She raised her head, looking shocked.

‘It was the best thing that could have happened for me,’ he said. Though these days, he wasn’t always sure he believed that anymore. ‘I was going nowhere in life; had run away from home, was messing around with the wrong people. I was dealing drugs by the time I was sixteen. You’ve just seen the scars. You don’t get many friends in that business. I probably wouldn’t have lived past twenty if I hadn’t come into this job.’

‘And how
do
you come into it? What you’ve just described doesn’t seem to be the sort of profile the intelligence agencies go for. No offence.’

‘None taken. What, you thought they only accept people with solid degrees and a stable family background?’

‘I guess so. Well, I don’t know what I thought. I never really thought about it.’

‘Actually lost souls make great agents. They’ve got nothing to lose. I had nothing to lose. MI5, MI6 and the likes might be full of university graduates and toffs, but that certainly doesn’t fit the bill for what I do.’

‘So you’re really not MI6?

‘No.’

‘I guess it makes sense. So how did it happen? I’m assuming you didn’t see an ad in the local newspaper.’

‘When I was seventeen I got friendly with another dealer. He was quite a bit older than me but we used to cruise around together. His name was Pete. We’d been working together for months when he asked me to be his right-hand man. He said he wanted to take out the Yardies, the gang that ran one of the areas near where we lived. He was my friend, so I went along with it. I was young and stupid – what else was I going to do? Only problem was, the Yardies got wind of it, and when they confronted us, five against two, I got my first real scar. The one across my chest.’

She moved her hand up to it again, stroking over it with her fingers.

‘You were lucky.’

He nodded. ‘And not for the last time. But they hadn’t wanted to kill me. If they had, they would have done. But Pete, he wasn’t so lucky. He got knifed straight in the heart. He bled to death in my arms.’

The tone of Logan’s voice betrayed that the death of his friend was still a source of pain and discomfort for him. That was the
first time he had ever seen someone die. The first time he had ever seen a dead body. He still regarded it as the key turning point in his life.

‘I thought I was a man back then,’ he said. ‘But I wasn’t. I was a kid. I had been in scrapes before and had always come out on top. I thought I was invincible. Thought
we
were invincible. But you learn about these things the hard way.

‘A few days later, when I was out of hospital, I was approached by a guy. He told me Pete was undercover, working for him.’

‘And that was the agency?’

‘Kind of. He said he wanted me to finish Pete’s job for him. Finish off the Yardies.’

‘My God – what, you killed them?’

‘No, I told the guy to go fuck himself. Said if he ever came to me again, I’d cut his balls off. I wasn’t really in a good frame of mind at that moment.’

Grainger laughed. ‘Wow, you’ve got some real good interviewing skills.’

‘Yeah, well, he must have liked my response. He didn’t go away. He started paying me odds and sods to do errands. Finding out info, spreading rumours. I never really asked questions about who he was or why he was getting me to do these things. I didn’t have much else to do and he was giving me easy money. Not long after I started running those errands, the Yardies were dead. Murdered by another gang. He’d had me setting the bait without me even knowing it.’

‘That’s pretty sneaky.’

Logan nodded. ‘This was all for some other agency at this point. A specialist unit dealing with organised crime. Not who I work for now. But it was the same guy. He moved up in the world and took me with him. When I started in that new role, when I was nineteen, they got me the training. How to fight, how to use knives, guns. They taught me just about everything I know. Turned me into a machine.’

The last words were said with bitterness, the only bitterness he’d shown in the whole retelling.

Grainger moved her fingers up to the long scar on his neck. ‘What about this one?’

‘No,’ he said, taking her hand and pushing it back down to his chest. ‘That’s enough about me. What about you?’

She ignored the question and moved her hand back. ‘That’s the one, isn’t it?’

‘The one what?’

‘The one that hurt the most.’

Yes, it was
, he thought. But there was more than just his pain the night he’d received it.

‘The one that’s given you the anxiety,’ she said.

His body was now tense again. The ease and relaxation he’d felt was quickly ebbing away. She caressed the area and he tried to remain calm, tried to keep his mind on her and not the pain.

‘What happened?’ she said.

He brushed her off him and got up off the bed, then walked towards the bathroom.

‘I’m sorry. Just give me a minute.’

‘It was Selim, wasn’t it? Who did that to you.’

He didn’t answer as he headed into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He hung his head over the sink, unsure what to think. He was glad he had opened up to her. Talking to her about his life had given him a feeling of great power. But he wasn’t yet ready to broach the subject of his history with Selim. The pain from that experience was still all too real, too vivid in his mind. And his business with Selim was unfinished. He wanted to tell Grainger about his experiences, what Selim had done to him, he really did. But not yet.

He washed his face in cold water that stung the wounds he’d received in his fight with Lorik and sent a shiver through his whole body. After drying his face he headed back out to the bedroom and stood in the doorway, looking at Grainger. She was sitting upright on the bed, the upper half of her body exposed, the lower half tangled in the soft bed sheet. She looked sensational. She gave him a smile. It wasn’t a light-up-your-face smile. But it was enough. Being there with her made him feel stronger than he could ever remember.

‘Thank you for telling me,’ she said.

‘Thank you for listening.’

‘Try me, anytime.’

He walked over to the bed and lay back down next to her. Her body felt warm against his. He was about to lean in for a kiss when there was a knock at the door.

‘Housekeeping,’ said a male voice in French.

Logan and Grainger both laughed at the ruined moment. Logan jumped off the bed and fished on the floor for his discarded clothes.

‘I’ll get it,’ he said.

Grainger stood up. ‘Sure. Tell them to come back later. I’ll jump into the shower.’

She picked up her pile of clothes from the floor before making her way to the bathroom. Logan threw his clothes on and headed to the door.

He placed his eye up to the spy hole, a spontaneous reaction, but couldn’t see anything. It didn’t surprise him much. The hotel wasn’t the cleanest or most modern so the spy hole was probably clogged full of grime.

He put his hand out to the handle, turned it and began to pull the door open. It was ajar only a few inches when he saw the two figures outside, dressed in dark clothes, their faces covered by masks.

And as the man on the right thrust the butt of his baseball bat forwards, Logan immediately regretted his decision to open the door so brazenly.

Grainger was just turning the tap in the shower when she heard what sounded like the front door slamming shut. She was about to shout out to Logan, to see whether he’d managed to get the cleaner to go away, but then stopped herself when she heard a loud thump coming from the bedroom, followed by mumbled voices.

Her instincts were instantly on alert. She closed off the water and quickly dressed herself, then pressed her ear up against the bathroom door. She withdrew sharply when she heard Logan cry out, and then more thudding noises. Her heart began to crash in her chest. She strained her ears, trying her best to make out who was out there, how many people there were, what they were saying. No more sounds came. But she knew what was happening. Someone had come for them. Selim? The remnants of Blakemore’s men?

Her head was in a spin. What was she going to do?

A thought struck her. Did whoever was out there even know she was in the bathroom? If not, shouldn’t she just keep herself hidden?

But then Logan had been willing to risk his life for hers.

She crept up to the door again and jumped when there was a gentle tap on it from the other side.

‘We know you’re in there, Agent Grainger,’ the man said in an accent so thick the English was almost unintelligible.

Grainger gasped and lifted a hand to her mouth. A cold shiver swept across her. They knew her name?

‘Please come out now. Or we’ll cut his throat. And then we’ll cut yours too.’

‘Angela, come out,’ Logan shouted. ‘It’s the only way.’

She heard a thumping sound and a groaning exhale from Logan. What choice did she have?

She put her hand out to the door and opened it. As soon as she did, the man standing on the other side grabbed her arm and pulled her into him, spinning her around. He was big, as wide as he was tall, and his thick arm wrapped around her neck like a boa, holding her close up against his body and squeezing her tight. She hadn’t seen his face; it was covered with a fancy-dress mask, a caricature she hadn’t recognised in the brief glimpse of it she’d had.

As she looked over toward the bedroom door, she saw Logan on his knees. Another man, dressed similarly to the first in dark clothes and a mask, was standing behind him, a baseball bat held tightly across Logan’s neck.

Logan looked into her eyes. No pain, or fear. Just pure anger.

With his thick arm wrapped around her, she could sense the muscular bulk of the man who was holding her, hear and feel his breath on her neck. He smelt of stale sweat and cigarettes and a sickly sweet aftershave; the combination made her gag.

The man squeezed harder on her neck and Grainger writhed and scraped at his arm, trying to get him to loosen his grip.

Logan began to laugh. The man behind him pulled harder on the baseball bat. Logan winced as he did so, but he didn’t stop laughing.

‘You really don’t want to do that to her,’ Logan wheezed.

‘No?’ said the man behind Grainger. He squeezed her neck even harder, and Grainger thought her head might actually explode.

Her mind was going into a panic. It felt like the man was crushing the life from her. She stared deep into Logan’s eyes, not sure what he was doing, not sure what he was expecting her to do.

‘Believe me,’ Logan strained to say. His face was red, his eyes bursting out of his head. ‘I’ve been there before.’

Grainger didn’t need a second invitation. She knew exactly what Logan meant. She mustered all the power she could as she
raised her right leg and threw her foot back and up, aiming for the man’s groin. The connection was solid and the man let out a loud groan, weakening his grip on her neck just enough. She immediately took a deep gulp of air.

There was a commotion over where Logan was being held, but she was too engrossed to pay attention to what was happening. She had to assume he was making his move too.

Before the man holding her had a chance to recover, she thrust back an elbow, aiming for the point just around his waistband where his bladder was. The elbow dug deep and his legs kicked out involuntarily as she’d known they would, causing him to stumble backwards. He took her with him, but his grip around her neck was now almost gone entirely.

She grabbed at his arm, pulling it down, then swivelled her body around. Now at his side, she delivered a double-blow: she aimed a fist downward, making contact at the side of his leg, just above the knee, causing it to buckle inward, and almost immediately she smacked him with an open palm up against the base of his neck. He fell into a heap on the floor. Before he could move an inch, she delivered another blow to the back of his neck, and he was out cold.

Four strikes was all it had taken to fell a man more than twice her size. She’d aimed for pressure points that she knew would make a difference. Tricks her dad had taught her when she was just a skin-and-bone teenager.

Only when she was content that the man was no longer a threat did she look over to where Logan had been. He was now sitting upon the other masked man, whose arms were pinned down by Logan’s knees. Logan’s face was snarling but he was otherwise restrained. Not at all like he had been with Lorik.

‘Nice moves,’ he said, looking up at her and winking.

‘Not so bad yourself,’ she said.

Logan pulled the mask off the man he’d felled. Grainger didn’t recognise him. His eyes were rolling, his head lolling from side to side. He was conscious, but completely dazed.

‘Who sent you?’ Logan snapped, the anger in his voice clear.

The man murmured a sound but no words came out.

Grainger moved over to where she’d left her gun, stuffed under her pillow on the bed. She picked it up and checked the chamber, a habit.

Logan jumped up, went over and grabbed his gun too, then returned to the man. He knelt down on him and stuffed the barrel of the gun into his mouth.

‘Logan, no!’ Grainger shouted.

The man began to moan and writhe. Logan took the gun out of his mouth.

‘Who sent you?!’ Logan spat.

The man again murmured but whatever he had tried to say was indecipherable. Logan grabbed the barrel with his other hand and, with a backhanded swipe, he smacked the butt against the man’s jaw. Blood and teeth spluttered out of his mouth.

‘Who sent you?!’ Logan screamed.

He grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck, lifted his head up into the air, then smacked it off the floor. Once. Twice. A third time. His body squirmed for just a second. After that, he went still.

‘Stop it!’ Grainger screamed. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’

She shook her head. She was just as angry as Logan that they had been attacked, and just as confused as to who the two men were, but the brutally of Logan’s methods, which seemed to come so naturally to him, shocked her.

She was also scared. Just who was after them? All she wanted to do now was to go, as fast and as far away as they could.

‘We have to go, Logan. We don’t know who else is out there.’

‘Shit,’ he said, sitting back.

Moving to the side, he quickly rifled through the man’s pockets, but other than a set of car keys there was nothing there. He stood up and marched towards the bathroom where the other man lay slumped near to the doorway. Grainger held out a hand to him but he brushed past and crouched down next to the man.

‘Logan, I’m going,’ she said, turning away from him and making towards the door. ‘We don’t have time for this.’

She wasn’t sure whether she really meant it, whether she really would have walked away and left him there with the two men. But in the end it didn’t matter. As she reached the bedroom door, she heard his voice from behind her.

‘Okay, there’s nothing more we can do here. I’m coming with you.’