Run Among Thorns (27 page)

She got the impression they were nearing the answers to their questions. And what then?

That,
what then
, was becoming the whole focus of her existence.

Chapter
        THIRTEEN

I
’ve got news for you,” said Bradley.

Kier tucked the phone against his shoulder, and tugged the living room curtains closed. On the sofa, Jenny sat wrapped in the duvet, wide-eyed and anxious.

They’d gone to bed early, after all. He’d just managed to catch Bradley at the office. “Good. Spill.”

“No, let’s start with you. For a start, why are you convinced this is about you and not her?”

Kier hesitated, glancing towards Jenny again.

“McAllister?”

“I was just thinking things through. You see, I can’t quite get my head clear about how this thing must have been put together—”

“You what? You’re the most clear-thinking person I know. What happened?”

“Nothing,” he said, irritated. He was here to put two professional brains together, not suffer a character assassination. “The tip-off for me was that information about her marksmanship. I distinctly remember pinning most of my suspicion of Jenny on the fact that she had no reasonable links whatsoever with firearms. It made the ease with which she handled them even more unlikely. I made a point of remarking on that to the Dawson guy.”

“The profiler? John Dawson?”

“That’s him. Then it turns out she has all this experience, holds a firearms licence, shoots skeets,” he broke off and sketched a frustrated curve in the air with one hand while Jenny watched in silence, “her brother even called it the ‘Waring aim,’ for God’s sake. It even runs in the family!”

“And you think they deliberately withheld that from you.”

Kier snorted. “You think they just happened to overlook it?”

“Nope,” said Bradley. “As it happens, Kier, you were right.”

“Of course.”

“And wrong.”

Kier paused, running possibilities through his mind. “Okay,” he said, quietly, “give.”

“It wasn’t about you, actually. Neither was it about Miss Jenny Waring. Although I don’t think they went as far as to set up the situation any, beyond hiding that initial information.

“As I see it, they latched onto that scenario at Jenny’s office exactly for the reason they told you when they pulled you in. And when they got the British Intelligence report, they would have gotten the firearms information you were looking for. Normally, the whole thing would have been discarded then.”

“Of course.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“What are you getting at, Bradley?”

“Two people. Two people I have placed at the Agency headquarters at the time the report of Jenny’s incident would have come in. Those two, combined with the situation, were like air, fuel, and spark. No particular problem on their own, but combined …” he paused. “Flammable.”

Kier cursed. “Stop playing games.”

“I’m sorry, I just find this whole thing fascinating. Person one: Jeremy Groven—you know he was there, right? Person two: Matthew Christopher Kendrick.”

“Kendrick was there? At the Agency? I thought he was in the UK.”

“When I said this wasn’t about you, either? That’s because it’s about Kendrick.”

Kier blinked, and then wondered if he was catching Jenny’s habit. “Kendrick? What the hell do you mean?” Jenny was watching him, trying, he knew, to decipher something from the half conversation she could hear.

“I’m not one hundred percent certain just yet. But it has a lot to do with industry links he’s been forging lately, and it reminded me of a setup I’ve seen done a few times before.”

“Wait. What about Groven?”

“Groven’s been put in charge of the whole organisation’s strategic development. They’re—Groven, Davids, and Kendrick—anticipating change, Kier, and they’re looking for ways to capitalise on it.”

“Go on.”

“What if you have someone freelancing with some very special skills? So special, that in fact he’s at the top of his profession, the first man you call, he’s the best.”

“You’re talking about me.”

“No. I’m talking about Kendrick.”

Kier gripped the phone harder.

“Breathe, McAllister. Let me finish. I would have been talking about you, right up to, oh, I don’t know, the time you went on the run with your subject, ran Kendrick off the road, and had a couple of arrest warrants slapped on you. Now I’m talking about Kendrick.”

Kier swore softly.

“Now what happens if that first-man-you-call is not, in actual fact, freelance, but is secretly employed by one of those organisations that might, from time to time, employ him.”

“You have a very interesting little information flow.”

“You have a spy.”

“Hmmmmm,” said Kier, frowning at the carpet.

“Right. Stretch your imagination a little farther. Your potential spy isn’t, in matter of fact, the top dog. The top dog is still leader of the pack and in top growling form. How do you get rid of the top dog, Kier?”

“Kill him.”

Bradley said, with patience and just a touch of patronage, “No. How do we get rid of the top dog without a breath of suspicion attached to our nefarious purposes?”

“Get him to retire or discredit him.”

“Hell, both, who cares.”

“But why Jenny?”

“You’ll have to ask Kendrick that, but it’s my guess she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

He half-turned away from Jenny’s stare. “But they couldn’t predict I was going to … going to give a damn about the way they treated her! They couldn’t predict the way I was going to act!”

“Couldn’t they?” Bradley said with a wry twist to his voice. “If you’d reported back on any subject and they’d told you to ditch your usual routine under strange circumstances and deliver the subject up, then turned up at your secret location with armed goons, what would you have done, even if it wasn’t Jenny?”

He’d have been furious, and as obstructive as he knew how. And he very probably would have absconded with the subject. “I see your point. But they couldn’t know I was going to take it this far!”

“No, but they had good reason to suppose you would resist, and a good chance of provoking you to do something stu—something different.”

“Something stupid is about right.”

“Well, yeah.”

“All this is just supposition, Bradley, we have no proof.”

“No, we don’t.”

Kier thought hard. About Kendrick and his motivations, about what made him useful to the Agency, about what made him, Kier, a danger to them.

About what he needed to do to get them all out of this tangle.

There was a key out there, he knew it. He could feel it at the back of his brain, itching. He needed something to get them clean out of this, clear his name, make it impossible for them to incarcerate Jenny again.

He needed a Get Out Of Jail Free Card.

“It might be enough, though.” He met Jenny’s eyes. “I’ve had enough of being pushed around. Time to do some pushing of my own. Oh, and Bradley?”

“Yeah?”

“You were wrong when you said Kendrick was the best.”

He could hear the smile in the other man’s voice. “Oh? How so?”

“Because I am.”

They slept late, unbelievably. But then, they’d had a lot of catching up to do. Jenny washed and dressed without looking at Kier too much, feeling almost as if she was still dreaming. Half of what Kier had told her the night before didn’t make any sense to her. The other half she wished she didn’t believe.

And Kier’s grand plan? Well, she really wished she’d dreamed that.

“I understand you want to talk to Kendrick. But, Kier, how can you be sure he’ll find us?”

“He’ll find us.”

“How?”

“Because I’m going to call him.”

She shivered, tugging the robe tighter. The argument that had followed had been a waste of time. In the end, he’d just bullied her in true McAllister fashion, all looming bulk and blazing eyes.

She went into the kitchen to make them both some toast. When she came back into the living room with the plate, Kier was holding the phone.

He dialed. “This is McAllister speaking. I have a message for Kendrick. Yes, I know you’re night cover, I know he’s not there. But you will get this message to him.”

He listened for a moment, and Jenny watched him, the toast cooling on the plate, wishing fiercely that she’d been able to come up with a better idea. But she hadn’t, and so they were sending their enemy an invitation.

“The message is this. Come and talk.” And he gave their address.

“Sir?”

John clutched his cell phone tighter, and looked around him nervously. But the good people of the city of York were going about their business, snatching a late lunch, ignoring another foreign tourist. He cupped his hand about the mouthpiece and spoke to the Agency caller.

“Dawson speaking. What is it?”

“I have a call transfer for you. You wanted this caller forwarded.”

“Who is it?” he said, to be sure.

“Kendrick, sir.”

He glanced about him again, and backed into the doorway of an empty shop, its windows washed over with white paint and peeling “closing down sale” stickers. “Okay. Put him through.”

“Dawson? Where the hell are you?”

John looked up at several hundred feet of medieval Minster, towering over the city, ornate and magnificent. Jet lag sapped his mind. “Uh … out of the office.”

“Christ. Well, get back there. I need you to arrange things.”

“Sir,” he said. “What do you need?”

“McAllister’s been in touch. He wants to meet, he’s told me where to find him. I’m guessing he thinks he’s just going to hand over the girl and it’ll all go away.” Kendrick gave a gasp of laughter, sharp and ugly. “As if.”

“What do you need?” John repeated, working to keep the edge from his voice.

“I want you to arrange local police attendance. I’m planning to be there about five, but I don’t want any interference until I’ve had a chance to act.”

To act. John swallowed.

“Call them at about six, local time.”

He covered the mouthpiece and cleared his throat. Uncovering it again, he said, “Yes, sir. What’s the location?” His hand sweated on the cell.

Kendrick told him, then John got him to repeat it.
Gotcha
, he thought.

“I want you to leave.”

“No,” Jenny said, on general principles.

McAllister braced his hands on his hips, scowling at her. “I’ve no guarantees how this is going to go. I think I’ve got enough to play him like a fool, but I can’t be sure. If this goes wrong, I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

She didn’t bother to hide the anger in her voice. “Where, exactly, were you planning on sending me, Kier? I can’t go home. I can’t go to Alan’s. I have no money, no transport, and I’m a witness to everything that’s happened. Or would you like me to take the stolen vehicle outside and just drive around until the petrol runs out?”

He swore.

“Yeah. Looks like you’re stuck with me, huh?”