Logan would be the first to admit that his turning to Fleming for help hadn’t come easily. Fleming was a man he’d long despised. At one point in his life, he’d wanted nothing more than to inflict serious pain on him. But a lot had changed. As he sat at the dining table, hearing Fleming commit to providing his help, Logan was reminded of a conversation he’d had with Lena during his captivity in Russia. She’d said Logan was a survivor. That he did whatever was necessary to survive. She was right. His being there, in Fleming’s house, was all about survival. There was nothing more to it than that.
‘Are you sure you don’t want some?’ Fleming said to Grainger, swirling his wine glass.
‘No. Thank you,’ Grainger said. ‘I want to keep a clear head.’
‘I can only imagine how hard the last few months must have been for you.’
Grainger said nothing in response. Logan knew the subject of her running to the Russians for safety was an uncomfortable one, not just for her but for him too. He’d certainly not felt like broaching it with her yet. But Fleming, now that he had laid his cards on the table, was enjoying seeing Grainger squirm.
‘So is it true?’ Fleming said.
‘Is what true?’ Grainger responded, a hint of exasperation in her tone.
‘Were you responsible for Frank Modena’s kidnapping?’
Grainger said nothing.
‘And for the lives of all those innocent agents who died in the ambush,’ Fleming added. ‘It’s a cold person who can pull off something like that.’
‘Yes, well, sometimes people aren’t what they seem,’ Grainger said, her tone full of disdain and her manner making it clear that she wasn’t afraid to take on Fleming. ‘Are they, Captain?’
Fleming held his gaze on her. Butler looked back and forth between Grainger and his boss, clearly enjoying the awkward moment and waiting to see whether it would escalate. That was the last thing Logan wanted. He didn’t trust Fleming, but he at least wanted to believe that Fleming was going to help them as he’d said he would. Challenging him was hardly going to play to their advantage.
‘Let’s just drop it,’ Logan said.
Fleming held up his hands in defence. ‘Hey, I’m just trying to understand the predicament you two have found yourselves in.’
‘Move on,’ Logan said.
Inside he was seething. Fleming had agreed to help, but that didn’t mean Logan had to like him. Still, he knew he had to try to play nice. For whatever reason, Fleming was giving them his hospitality, and as long as that was the case, Logan and Grainger had to keep Fleming on side. Plus, Logan really didn’t want to have to think about the events Grainger had set in motion that had led to Modena’s kidnapping and a number of innocent people getting killed. That wasn’t the Grainger he knew. The one he was helping.
‘The wine’s good,’ Logan said, hoping a change of subject would do the trick.
‘Any guess where it’s from?’ Fleming quizzed.
‘I wouldn’t have a clue.’
‘No, me neither. Bulat sources it for me. I enjoy drinking wine but it’s not my passion. Whisky, on the other hand, I know a lot about.’
‘You can get decent whisky in Kazakhstan?’
‘You can get decent whisky anywhere if you pay enough.’
‘That figures.’
‘Come on, why don’t we finish this wine off in the lounge? Then I’ll show you a thing or two about Scotch that I bet you didn’t know.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘You like cigars?’
‘No.’
‘Shame. They’re one of my other passions.’
‘I’ve never smoked anything in my life.’
‘You’re missing out.’
‘Never really saw the point.’
‘Your loss.’
Fleming got to his feet and picked up the carafe.
‘I’m just going to grab some water,’ Grainger said. ‘If I could?’
‘Help yourself. The stuff in the fridge is better than in the taps.’
Butler lifted his glass and followed Fleming out of the kitchen. Logan stayed and watched Grainger pour water into her wine glass from one of the many bottles crammed into the fridge.
‘You okay?’ Logan asked.
‘Not really,’ Grainger said. ‘I hate it here.’
‘But what choice do we have?’
‘Logan, I know that. You don’t have to keep reminding me. It doesn’t make being here any easier, though.’
Her forthright tone knocked Logan back. He was finding it so hard to break through to her. The affectionate moments they’d shared in the bedroom hours before already seemed so distant. It was as though she was constantly battling to keep up her defensive walls. Logan wasn’t sure whether it was just the dire situation they found themselves in or whether this was just the way she was now. Maybe it was the way she had always been and the person he had met and been attracted to so strongly in Paris had just been a facade.
He really hoped that wasn’t the case.
‘I think I’m going to go back to bed,’ she said, after drinking her glass of water and then refilling.
‘Okay,’ Logan said.
‘You coming?’
‘No, I’m just going to have a couple more drinks. I’ll be up soon.’
Grainger huffed. ‘Fine. I’ll see you in the morning.’
She headed off. Logan immediately felt bad. It was early in the evening, though, and he thought it was important to keep up appearances with Fleming. Plus, he figured the more alcohol the three of them ploughed through, the more likely it was that any remaining falsities that Fleming and Butler were hiding behind would be exposed.
Logan headed to the lounge. When he walked in, Fleming and Butler quickly stopped talking and looked up. It reminded Logan of the Scottish Highlands, when he’d come back from fetching firewood to find the two of them deep in discussion. On that occasion, the two soldiers had been plotting how to take Logan down and leave him alone in the wilderness.
What were they plotting this time?
‘Ah, you’re alone?’ Fleming remarked.
‘She’s gone to bed. She’s not really with it. I’m sure you can imagine she’s having a pretty hard time at the moment. She’s been on her own for a year, always looking over her shoulder. She’s not used to company. To socialising.’
Fleming shrugged. ‘It is what it is. So what’s your tipple?’
‘I’m fine with the wine for now,’ Logan said, sitting down on one of the threadbare sofas.
Fleming was sitting on the other. Butler was hunched on an armchair.
‘Fair enough. Help yourself,’ Fleming said, nodding over to the carafe. ‘How about you, Butler?’
‘Whatever you’re having.’
‘Good answer.’
Fleming got up and headed over to the tall beech cabinet next to Butler’s armchair. He opened it up and Logan saw the vast array of spirit bottles neatly arranged inside. Fleming perused his collection before taking down one of the bottles from the top shelf. The labelling wasn’t familiar to Logan, but he guessed it was a whisky from its caramel colouring and the style of the bottle.
Fleming poured large measures into two tumblers, gave one to Butler and then sat down with his own.
‘Looks like the wine is all for you then,’ Fleming said to Logan.
The three of them sat there in the lounge with their drinks, each becoming more relaxed, each becoming more inebriated. To begin with, the discussion was banal and without much focus. Just three men with a bit of time and a little bit too much alcohol inside them.
Logan was enjoying the respite, the feeling of doing something that felt like normality, even if he was in the company of two men he had long despised. But as they eased through several more rounds of drinks, Logan became more and more irked by the stuffy tone and snide comments still coming from Butler.
Retirement from the army, if you could call it that, seemed to have mellowed Fleming. Logan actually found him to be engaging and interesting, even if he wasn’t exactly likeable. He had engrossing stories to tell of heroism and camaraderie, and Logan could well imagine that he had been a great leader of the men under his watch. In some ways, Fleming reminded Logan of Mackie, particularly in the way Fleming had mentored and looked after his men. Fathered them. It was exactly how Logan had always felt under Mackie: wanted, needed.
Butler couldn’t have been more different to his boss. He was now bitter and morose, and much of his ire seemed to be directed at Logan.
‘I bet twenty years ago you never saw yourself sitting in Kazakhstan drinking Scotch and shooting the shit with me,’ Logan slurred to Fleming.
Logan knew that out of the three men, he was handling his drink the worst. It was a long time since he’d had any alcohol at all. Tonight he’d had a skinful.
‘You’re right,’ Fleming said. ‘But I’m not sure either of our lives have panned out quite the way we expected.’
‘Why did you do it?’ Logan asked.
Fleming raised an eyebrow. Butler stopped mid-sip.
‘Why did you leave me out there to die?’
Fleming held Logan’s stare for a good while without saying a word. Logan felt some clarity return to his hazy mind as he waited for the response. He wasn’t quite sure why he had asked the question or what he was expecting to gain from the answer. But he wanted to know.
‘I did what I was told to do,’ Fleming said.
Logan frowned and shifted in his seat. ‘Who told you to do what?’
‘Your agency. The guy in charge there. He told me to haze you. To make you suffer. Said he needed to know you were tough. It was all part of your training.’
Through the alcohol-fuelled blur, Logan could feel anger building in his head.
‘Mackie?’ Logan asked.
‘Yeah, that name rings a bell. He was your boss, right?’
‘Yeah. He was,’ Logan said. ‘He’s dead.’
Fleming didn’t say anything to that. Logan sat contemplating what Fleming had said.
‘To be honest, it was an odd request,’ Fleming said and then he shrugged. ‘But hey, an order is an order, right?’
‘What? He told you to break my leg and leave me for dead?’ Logan fumed.
‘No, you brought that on yourself, you piece of shit,’ Butler said.
Logan glared at Butler whose face was etched with anger, as though it was he who had been somehow wronged.
‘He’s right,’ Fleming said. ‘The hazing was one thing. And we were told to leave you out in the Highlands for you to find your own way back. They wanted to know you could handle that. On your own. That’s what you are. That’s what they wanted you to be. A lone wolf. But you attacked us. You broke Butler’s arm. What did you expect us to do?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Call for help, maybe?’
‘Who said we didn’t?’
‘None came.’
‘Well, how do you explain the trackers finding you? You think they just happened to pass the exact spot you’d crawled to? Come on, do you believe that? Just because your boss chose not to fill you in on what really happened doesn’t mean it isn’t true.’
Logan was raging now. Much of his emotion was directed at Fleming and Butler. They were talking about the event like it was nothing more than a mild inconvenience when Logan had very nearly lost his life.
But Logan was also angered at the role Mackie might have played in the situation. Mackie, whom Logan had long clung to as the one person in his life he could fully trust, who really believed in him. Too many times recently Logan had been made to question whether his faith in his late boss had been misplaced. Not so long ago, he would have refuted Fleming’s claim outright, would have hammered him for even suggesting it. But not anymore. Why would Fleming lie? And his recounting had seemed genuine. With the amount of whisky he’d drunk, Logan didn’t think the man would have the capacity or the urge to concoct such a lie.
It was just another example of how Logan had been manipulated by the JIA, been coaxed by them into performing for their ulterior benefit. And Mackie had been behind nearly every move Logan had made for the agency. It left a sour taste in his mouth that only in the aftermath of Mackie’s death was Logan finding out about the other side of a man he had looked upon like a father. There weren’t many happy memories in Logan’s head, but he’d always thought of Mackie with genuine fondness. Now those memories were becoming somewhat tainted.
Butler began to snigger.
‘What the fuck are you laughing about?’ Logan spat.
‘I’m glad we did what we did to you,’ Butler responded, a wicked grin on his face. ‘You deserved it. You thought you were the dog’s bollocks, coming into our world like you did. We’d trained and fought for years to get to where we were. Why should we have even given you the time of day?’
‘You know nothing about who I am or what I am,’ Logan said. ‘You never did.’
‘We knew enough. You didn’t deserve to be with us. And that was as much as we needed to know. I’m glad about what we did to you. We all were. We enjoyed watching you squirm, watching you slowly realise that you weren’t the top dog you thought you were.’
Logan clenched his fists tightly, trying to keep a lid on his anger. He had been right about one thing: the alcohol had certainly brought down Fleming’s and Butler’s walls. The problem was Logan wasn’t sure he could control himself with all of the wine sloshing about inside of him.
He went to stand up, but his vision blurred for a couple of seconds and he had to put his hand on the sofa arm to keep himself from toppling over. As he stood, Butler too got out of his chair. Logan quickly realised the ex-soldier must have seen Logan getting to his feet as a challenge.
‘Now, now, boys,’ Fleming slurred.
Logan had only been standing up to head to the toilet, but now that he was upright and face to face with Butler, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to pass up the opportunity. Both men stepped forward. Suddenly they were within touching distance, each sizing the other up. Both men snarled. Logan’s fuzzy mind was busy trying to prepare for an attack from Butler. Or should he just make the first move and be done with it?
‘You might have got the better of me when I was a naive kid, but don’t fool yourself, Butler. I’m not that kid anymore.’
‘Just try me,’ Butler said.
‘You’re not even worth it,’ Logan said, peeling away – and glowing inside for having had the strength of mind to do so when what he really wanted to do was floor Butler.
But as he stepped away, toward the door, he sensed movement at his back. It wasn’t the first time Butler had tried to take Logan out from behind. That time, Butler had been successful, crashing a rock against Logan’s skull. But Logan hadn’t just been bragging. He really wasn’t the same person he had been back then. And when it came to moments like this, it was one of the few things he had to thank the JIA for.
Logan spun around, ducking down as he did so and lifting up his forearm to block Butler’s wide, sweeping right hook. He balled his left fist and sent a crashing straight-arm strike onto Butler’s nose.
Butler stepped back, wobbled and then fell to the floor, smacking his head off the armchair on the way. He wasn’t unconscious but after a few seconds it was clear he wouldn’t be getting up in a hurry.
Logan looked over and saw Fleming’s face was entirely expressionless. He studied Logan and shrugged.
‘Well, I’m sure that’s not going to ease relations between you two much,’ Fleming said. ‘Let me speak to him in the morning. When we’re all a bit more with it.’
Logan didn’t respond. He just turned and headed for the door.