Dance With the Enemy (32 page)

The trip was long, the roads quiet. Miles went by without his seeing any other cars. Logan was no longer keeping to the speed limit like he had earlier. He was pushing the car as hard and fast as it would go. Each time he saw the nearing taillights of a car in front, he half wondered whether it might be Grainger’s. But it never was; each car that came and went only resulted in disappointment.

What would he have done if one of the cars
had
been hers? Shoot her there and then? Ram her off the road? Ask her nicely to pull over?

In the end, he hadn’t needed to make that decision.

After travelling on wide freeways for the first hour or so, the roads had eventually become narrower, darker, more desolate. Even with the bright light coming down from the moon there was little to see around him. Dense forests surrounded the roads for much of the journey, and whenever he reached a clearing in the trees, the horizon stopped abruptly in the near distance with the murky silhouettes of the surrounding hills and mountains.

In the daytime, the setting would have been magnificent. Travelling alone at night, the vast, unknown blackness was much more sinister.

Despite the long, tedious and lonely trip, made worse by Logan’s already weary state, he was surprisingly alert and ready –wired, heart racing, mind on overdrive. It felt like he had a
steady stream of caffeine and adrenaline coursing through his blood. It should have been a good feeling. But it wasn’t.

With help from Mackie and the team, he’d finally been given an address in the northern part of the Allegheny Mountains about an hour earlier. The GPS had done the rest.

Finally, over four hours after leaving the Dennis place in Binghamton, he was driving through Linville, the nearest village to his destination. His head was still in utter confusion. Over the course of the drive he’d even begun to question whether he’d somehow been wrong about coming here. Maybe Grainger was still back in Broome County. And maybe Kennedy was already dead after all, just like Mackie had said. But the reports from Mackie were that there was still no sign of Kennedy. He’d also been told that it appeared Grainger had been staying at the apartment in Binghamton.

And as he arrived at his destination, the lake house Grainger had talked about to him so fondly when they’d been together in Paris, his uncertainty was put to rest when he saw Grainger’s car parked up on the gravel driveway. The house, which was an oversized log cabin, was one of five on this part of the lakefront, all in a row, separated from each other by a good few hundred yards. Space wasn’t an issue out here. There was just so much of it. It was clear that each plot carried a large acreage.

Dense forest lay behind, leading into the mountains. In front was the shadowy expanse of the lake, its dark, inky water shimmering in the moonlight. Wanting to approach the property quietly, Logan parked his car out on the carriageway. He felt a chill as he stepped out of the car. Not from the weather, even though it was probably five degrees cooler here than it had been in New York, but because of the eerie setting. This really was about as remote and isolated as it got.

It took him back to a conversation he’d had with Grainger about where Selim would run to. Grainger had been surprised that Selim would take Modena to a residential area rather than the middle of nowhere. Now Logan knew why. Because to her, this was always going to be the rendezvous for this final act. Remote. Deserted.

There were lights on in the cabin. He walked up the steps which led to the raised porch that ran the entire length of the
lakefront side of the property. When he reached the top, he slowly put his hand out to the door handle and turned it. It was unlocked. Slowly he pushed the door ajar and stepped in, gun out but pointed at the floor.

As he glanced around the room, he spotted Grainger. She was standing no more than six or seven yards away from him beyond a sofa, an elaborate oak-and-red-brick fireplace behind her, and pointing a gun at his head.

‘
Carl?
’ she said, in an exasperated tone. ‘How did you find me?’

‘I’m good at this, remember?’

‘Put the gun down. We don’t have to do this.’

‘No,
you
don’t have to do this. I really do. It’s my job.’

Logan took a step forward, towards the sofa that separated the two of them.

‘Don’t move!’ Grainger screamed.

He stopped. From this angle he could see the bound and gagged figure curled up on the floor by her feet. It must have been Kennedy. The man had a bloodied face. Logan wasn’t sure what other injuries he had, but he was still alive; his eyes were wide open and his nostrils were flaring widely.

Logan looked back up at Grainger.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Carl. I’m not a bad person. This man killed my father!’

Kennedy squirmed and moaned but both Logan and Grainger ignored him.

‘How many other people have died, though, because of what you’ve done?’

‘That wasn’t my fault!’ she protested. ‘Blakemore wasn’t supposed to do it like he did. I was never responsible for the way it panned out. When Selim became involved, it changed everything. He was the one who made it like it was. They were never supposed to kill anyone.’

‘How could you even deal with those people?’ Logan said, disappointment in his voice and hurt in his eyes.

‘It was all Blakemore. I hired him and he brought in all the others. Somewhere along the line, the whole plan got corrupted.’

‘Yeah. And look how it turned out.’

‘I was trying to do the right thing,’ she said.

‘Somehow I’m struggling to see that.’

‘How can you even
say
that? The whole time I was trying to
rescue Modena because I knew what Blakemore had done, what Selim was doing, was nothing like what had been planned. And when you turned up, it seemed like a good opportunity. Work with someone else. Try to regain control.’

‘You used me. I saved your life and all the time you were just using me.’

‘You did save my life! And you don’t know how grateful I am. Lorik had no idea who I was because he was nothing to do with me. Blakemore hired his own men, including Selim. Then when Selim took Modena, I led you straight to him. I didn’t want that animal anywhere near Modena!’

‘You knew where Selim had taken him all along, didn’t you?’

She bowed her head, ashamed. Though he wasn’t sure for which part.

‘Yes. There never was any evidence at Blakemore’s. I wrote the address on that piece of paper and gave it to you because I wanted you to help me get Modena back. Don’t you see? I was
trying
to do the right thing.’

‘And Blakemore?’

‘What about him?’

‘You killed him, didn’t you? And you lied to me. You made me believe it was Selim’s man who did it.’

‘Yes. I shot him. He was a terrible person, Carl. He didn’t deserve any better.’

‘No, you just wanted to eliminate a potential witness.’

‘Blakemore had it coming his whole life,’ she spat, angered. ‘His death at my hands was much more pleasant than if we’d left him to Selim.’

‘What about laws? Have you completely forgotten who you are? What you do?’

‘What about them?!
You
don’t abide by them! Tell me, how are we different? You go around killing the bad guys too. But you feel you’re justified because you do it for your goddamn country and someone’s given you the order. Do you make a moral judgement before you do it? No. You go ahead and kill whoever you’re told to because that’s what you’re paid to do. And you think
you’re
justified! Ha! Well,
I’m
justified!’

‘It’s not up to you, though.’

‘Then who is it up to? They’re bad people! This man killed my dad.’ She laid a kick into Kennedy’s side and he let out a long
groan. ‘Not just my dad – he’s killed dozens of people! And he gets to live his life as a free man because he did
one
good thing. That’s just not good enough for me. And if you were the man I thought you were, it wouldn’t be good enough for you.’

Grainger’s words resonated with him. Logan didn’t want to agree with her, but in many ways he did. He had never hidden who he was. Under different circumstances he would have had no qualms about putting a bullet into the likes of Kennedy.

But the way she had gone about it had seen innocent people hurt and killed. He had never expected that of her.

He looked down and saw that Kennedy was staring at him, a pleading look in his eyes. It made Logan feel uncomfortable and he shifted to the side so that Kennedy’s face was hidden from him behind the sofa.

‘You played me, Angela,’ Logan said, unable to hide his anger. ‘That’s what hurts the most. My feelings for you were real. And yet all you were doing was using me to achieve your own goals.’

‘That’s not true. It’s just not true.’ Tears began to fall on her cheeks. She sniffed. ‘God, why’d we have to happen, Carl? Why’d it have to happen like this?’

Despite everything, seeing Grainger so upset made Logan feel for her.

‘Remember what you said to me yesterday?’ Grainger asked.

Of course he did. He’d opened his heart up in a way that he’d never done before. Would he ever get the chance to do that again?

‘I’ve never felt so confused,’ she sobbed. ‘I wanted to push myself away from you. I knew I couldn’t get too close. But you pulled me in too deep.’

‘That’s why you were fighting with me?’

‘Yes! Exactly. But when you said those words to me, my heart just melted. I’ve never felt like that before. Ever. It was the most incredible feeling. And yet it was the saddest moment of my life. Because I knew that I would never be able to feel like that again. Please, Carl. If any of what you said to me was true, you won’t stop me now. You can’t.’

‘I meant every last word of it,’ he said with bitter disappointment. ‘Every last word.’

‘Then please don’t stop me. Just let me do this. What difference does it make now? What difference does it really make to you? Kennedy is a bad man. He deserves to die.’

Logan could hear Kennedy moaning at her words, attempting to shout out. He tried to block the murmurings from his mind.

Grainger’s bottom lip began to quiver. ‘He’s a killer, Carl.
He killed my father
.’

Her pleading voice was getting weaker. She looked close to a full breakdown. He wanted to hate her for what she had done, for the way that she had used him. But just watching her made his heart feel like it was splitting in two.

‘Wouldn’t you have asked the same of me if we were in a room with Selim?’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t you have asked me to let you do it? To let you kill him in cold blood?’

He didn’t even have to think about the answer to that one.

‘Of course I would,’ he said.

‘And yet you didn’t even have to. I watched you, Carl. I was there, at the door, the whole time. I watched you with Selim. I gave you the chance to do what you had to do.’

He felt his legs go weak. He hadn’t noticed her at the time, but he had seen her at the door straight after he’d shot Selim. She hadn’t stopped him. She hadn’t even tried.

‘So how is it different?’ she said.

‘Because I would have stopped if
you
had asked me to,’ he responded, without even thinking.

‘Carl, don’t you see?’ she said. ‘Don’t you know what you mean to me? I would
never
have asked you to stop. I knew what killing Selim meant to you.’

Her words hit him like a freight train. Because he knew that she was right, and that he had no choice. What he’d told her yesterday, he’d meant every word. His entire adult life had been empty of emotions. They had only known each other for a few days but with her he’d felt so much. He’d felt truly alive for the first time. He still wanted her. He still needed her.

And he knew that he couldn’t stand in her way now.

Logan slowly lowered his gun and dropped it to the floor. He turned away from her, one last stand of defiance. He heard the wails of Kennedy, who must have realised that his time was now up.

The single gunshot made Logan jump.

He turned back around, trying his best to avoid looking at the corpse on the ground. Kennedy was a bad man, Logan tried to convince himself. He
did
deserve to die.

Just like Selim did.

He looked into Grainger’s pleading, bloodshot eyes. He loathed her for what she had done. Not just the destruction she’d caused to innocent people, but the way she’d used him. But she looked so vulnerable. Part of him just wanted to take her in his arms. Tell her that he was there for her. In spite of everything, he just couldn’t ignore the attraction that was still there.

Maybe they were even more alike than he had realised.

He took a step towards her. She spoke to him, her voice nothing more than a whisper. He hadn’t heard her and wasn’t sure what she had said.

It was only when he saw her hand moving, rising, that his brain deciphered the words.

I love you.

He felt his heart flutter.

But before he could respond, she pointed the gun at him and fired.

When Logan arrived back in England three days later, his left leg was still heavily bandaged and he was unable to move around at all without crutches. As well as muscle damage, the bullet Grainger had fired had severed some of the nerve fibres above his knee. It would be a long and slow process to get back to full strength.

It wasn’t just his leg that had been damaged. A small part of him had died following the encounter with Grainger. It was a part of him that he hadn’t even known existed. And he wasn’t yet sure what that meant for him.

In a way, Grainger had begun his re-awakening. Before her, his entire focus had been on pain and suffering – both his and his enemy’s. His need for revenge against Selim had been all-encompassing and he’d been struggling to get the remnants of his life on track. Selim was dead and buried now, thanks to Grainger’s help. And it felt like he could finally start to rebuild his life again. But she’d also brought something else to the table. She’d given him hope.

It may not have been her intention – it almost certainly wasn’t – but in the time they’d spent together, she’d shown him how to control his feelings, how to feel new emotions. His feelings were no longer an explosive combination of hormones and chemicals that he had no control over and that he had to keep bottled up. They were there to get him through life, to help him live. Not all of his new-found feelings were positive; he’d also had to deal
with the embarrassment and disappointment of how his time with Grainger had panned out. But his new found self did, at least, make him a real human being again.

The darkness that had once clouded him was gone for good, that was for sure, but his rehabilitation was still a long way from complete. Could he ever have feelings for another person like he’d had for Grainger? Only time would tell, but her betrayal had cut him deeply. For now, he was locked in mourning. It was as though someone close to him had died. But he still believed that, because of Grainger, the dark old days were long gone.

After two days of gruelling debriefing following the showdown with Grainger, Logan was finally back in England. He’d agreed to meet Mackie, who had also returned home having spent the previous two days in America, for a drink.

‘I can see you’re still hurting,’ Mackie said. Logan assumed he was talking about his leg, but he couldn’t quite be sure.

‘How did we miss Grainger’s deception?’ Logan asked.

They were sitting in the corner of a coffee house near to the JIA offices. It was early morning and they were the only customers.

‘We didn’t miss it. We got there.’

‘Is there anything on where she’s gone?’ Logan said.

‘Nothing at all. She must have had an escape planned because she’s just vanished. There’s no trace of her anywhere.’

‘Just one thing, though …’ Logan said, a thought that had played on his mind for the last three days coming back to him. ‘Where did the other two million dollars go? The two million that didn’t wind up with Blakemore?’

Mackie sighed. ‘It certainly didn’t end up with Selim. And I don’t think it ended up with Grainger either.’

‘So she didn’t take a cut?’

‘Doesn’t look like it. The two million didn’t end up in any one place. It was bounced around all over. But most of it was used setting up the whole scheme. There are endless transactions it went towards: setting up shell companies, trusts, bank accounts, fees, expenses. All of the stuff that was needed to try to keep the trail clean.’

For some reason, that made Logan feel better. Grainger had never gone into any of this to try to make herself a few bucks, unlike all of the other participants. It had always been about getting to the man who had destroyed her life. He really could
see the parallels between her life and his. Even though what she had done had caused far more damage than she could ever have intended.

Did the end justify the means?

No, despite his feelings towards Grainger, he didn’t think so. He could still sympathise with where she had started from, though. And he did believe in the ends that she had achieved – getting her revenge on a man who had destroyed her life. But he could never agree with the way that she got there.

‘Poor old Modena must just have been a good fall guy,’ Logan said. ‘There must be numerous people who could have got the information on Kennedy. The whole scheme was designed to be more elaborate than it needed to be, just to deflect away from her.’

‘It certainly was elaborate,’ Mackie said. ‘A lot of people lost their lives to get to just one. Most of them were bad, granted, but not all of them. Not the agents at the start who were protecting Modena. Selim must’ve thought he’d struck gold when he got wind of the scheme.’

‘I wonder if he ever knew it was Grainger behind it?’

‘I doubt it,’ Mackie said. ‘Sounds like she kept her head low. That was the whole point. Making it look like the plot was down to someone else, Carlucci, so that we’d never find her. But we did find her. And in the end, it’s hard to see how else she could have seen this panning out.’

Logan finished the rest of his coffee and shifted in his seat to reach down to take his wallet out of his pocket. Even the slight movement sent a bolt of pain shooting through his leg, making him grimace.

‘You need to take some time off,’ Mackie said. ‘Get that arm and leg sorted out in the meantime.’

‘I don’t need any time off.’

‘You can’t walk, man!’ Mackie argued. ‘I want you fresh. Even if it’s just until the crutches are gone, I want you away from here.’

‘This isn’t over yet, Mackie,’ Logan said.

‘For you it is. Grainger isn’t our problem. Unless we’re asked to look into her disappearance, and I doubt we will be, you’re not to go anywhere near it.’

Logan heard the words but he didn’t have to agree to them. And he could tell that Mackie understood that.

Mackie sighed. ‘Just take a few days’ rest. Why don’t you go
on holiday? Back to Vegas or somewhere. I’ll even pay for it if you promise not to contact me while you’re there.’

‘And do
you
promise not to contact
me
?’

‘I’m not sure I’d go that far,’ Mackie said smiling.

‘Well, it was worth a try.’

‘So you agree?’

‘Yeah, fine. I’ll take a few days off. But this isn’t over. Not yet.’

Mackie sighed again. ‘Why do I not doubt that?’

The JIA may not be looking for Grainger, but Logan didn’t care. Grainger had betrayed his trust in the most grievous way and he could never forgive that. But she was out there somewhere and she was alone. His heart went out to her.

He had to find her. He knew that. And he knew that one day he would.

The only question was what he would do when he came face to face with her again.