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My court-appointed lawyer wasn’t good for much, but at least he got me a couple more phone calls.
The first one was to Rachel.
I dreaded it, but it couldn’t be helped. She worked at MI6. If anyone could get me out of this, she could. Even if that wasn’t an option, she could still wire me the money to get a better lawyer – one who spoke English.
I’d made it a habit to memorize her phone numbers as they changed from month to month. It was standard practice in Special Forces when given info you could not afford to lose.
Memorizing her number had been a pain in the ass since it changed every four to six weeks – but at least I knew it.
So I was beyond horrified when I dialed the number and heard the recorded message, “The number you have called has been disconnected. If you believe this is in error, please hang up and try again.”
“No… no,” I whispered.
I hung up and called again. Maybe I had misdialed – maybe my fingers had slipped –
“The number you have called has been disconnected. If you believe this is in – ”
“NO!” I yelled as I slammed down the receiver.
Every cop in the room turned towards me with their hands on their pistols.
“Scusi,” I said hoarsely, then set about dialing every number she’d had over the last 12 months.
Almost every single one of them was disconnected.
The two that weren’t disconnected were answered by people who told me, “Wrong number.”
SHIT.
Rachel’s cell number had only changed three weeks ago. She wasn’t due for another one for at least a week.
If she’d known her phone number was about to be changed, she would have told me before I left.
Had Alistair changed it so I couldn’t reach her? Because of his goddamn ‘firewall’?
He’d decided to burn me.
To make sure there was no one I could turn to.
Little did he know there was still one person I could count on.
I dialed and prayed that I wasn’t about to get fucked on this one, too.
A cheerful pothead’s voice answered. “Hello?”
THANK GOD.
“Gunnar, this is Lars,” I said in Swedish. I figured the cops were probably taping the phone call, so they would figure out what I said eventually – but I didn’t have to make it easy for them.
“Heyyyy, my brother! Are you in Italy right now? Cuz on caller ID it says – ”
“Yes, I am. And I got arrested for having some guns, so now I’m looking at 6 or 7 years in the slammer.”
“Oh SHIT…”
“Yeah. Listen, man – I need your help in a big way.”
“Anything I can do for you, brother, I’ll do!”
