Page 6 of 72 Hours

“Asked, didn’t I?” Christ, was this how it was going to be?

His voice dropped to a low monotone. I knew it was his way of controlling his emotions, but it still grated. “It was bad. It happened yesterday, early evening, about 19:25. It was pure luck that we were on our way to get some takeaway and had just left the apartment, taking the stairs. Otherwise we’d have been caught in the full blast....” He paused, swallowing heavily.

We? “You and Joe, that is.”

“Yes. We’d spent the early evening checking out some toxin reports from the Department.”

I nodded. Didn’t trust myself to speak, and Niall continued, regardless. “The rear of the building was damaged, though my kitchen took the worst of it. It blew a hole in the wall, demolished the room and knocked the impact through to all the other rooms. The explosives must have been set from the back yard, probably attached to the fire escape that leads up to my floor, with the bulk of it concentrated under my balcony. There was no evidence of anyone there at the time, so it was presumably on a timer. I’d guess a series of connected detonators around a central charge, small but heavy-duty explosives, staggered for maximum effect. It’s a style that some terrorists and saboteurs use.” I wondered if he was cataloguing the materials used; considering the likely suppliers. Weaponry was his specialty, after all.

“Joe got the brunt of it?”

“Yes. The apartment door blew out on to the corridor behind us and hit him. He fell down a couple of flights.”

“Anyone else hurt?”

He shook his head. “It was entirely localised. The police are giving out the message it was some kind of gas explosion. They don’t want anyone thinking it’s terrorism. But it was directed specifically at us, no doubt of that. The charges were camouflaged into the brickwork, so it had been placed over a period of days. The CCTV had been incapacitated and there’d obviously been detailed surveillance, to be able to establish who was at home and who wasn’t. I haven’t been officially deployed for the last few months, of course, so I was in a more familiar routine.” It was as if he were giving his official statement all over again. “My... the apartment is mostly rubble. It’ll be months before it’s safe to go back, let alone anyone live there.”

My pain was startlingly keen; that was the only excuse I had for my puerile response. “I forgot to return your spare key. Guess it won’t be such an issue now.”

“Cheap shot,” he said, in a very tight voice.

“Cheap? That’s me all over.” Comeback was automatic. “As you were so fucking eager to tell me, last time we were together.”

“As far as I remember, that was the only damned thing you wanted to hear, MacKay!”

A-ha! There was spirit left in him after all. I bit my lip, knowing I could take him on, knowing I could escalate an argument beyond belief in short, stunning seconds.

But I looked at the dark weariness in his eyes, and I didn’t do it. I dragged my control back from the brink, teasing nonchalance back into my voice. “Well, you’re out of there now, and more or less in one piece. The Department will get you another place, I expect.”

His eyes narrowed. With anger? Suspicion at my sudden change of mood? “Sure they will.” His voice had calmed, though I could see his fists clench again. “Judith has put in the request already. They’ve authorised her to evaluate a couple of other potential properties, from the point of view of security. Then I can move on. I mean, the apartment was fairly small, in a quiet area, no striking features. There are plenty of others on the market that are similar. It was only a place to live, right?”

I stared at him. “Right.”

He made a sudden, jerky movement that startled me, and his leg knocked against my small card table. Judith’s abandoned tea mug rattled, the reflections from the overhead strip lighting shivering in the surface of the liquid. Niall righted the mug with exaggerated care, but the scrape of the china on the plastic tabletop was still too sharp for my ears.

It seemed to affect him just as badly. He lifted his hands as if to bury his head in them, but then he paused and let them fall back to his lap. His voice hitched up a couple of notches on the volume control. “But it wasn’t just a place to live, Tanner. It was my home. So maybe I’ve had to move around in the past few years. I’ve learned to be ready to mobilise at a moment’s notice, never let my roots go very deep. But that place....”

“Don’t.” I knew he’d know what I meant.

“Not just where I lived,” he persisted. “It was more than that.” His voice faded and stopped. Despite his darker colouring, he looked horribly pale. I suspected he was still in some kind of shock.

I sighed. This was my living room, right? But it seemed an alien place right then, miles away and perching at the wrong end of a telescope. There wasn’t much to distract me except the ratty furniture; I’d never been one to collect trinkets of any kind. Even the pictures had only been sheets of advertising colour that had just caught my eye. There was nothing and no one but Niall to draw my attention. It had been a while since I’d heard him raise his voice like that. And for once, I agreed with everything he said.

I gentled my voice. “It was indeed, Niall. Much more than that. I liked it. Good place.”

He looked up at me then, the anger fading as quickly as it had come. Maybe he recognised something in my expression. There was too much we could both have said, but not enough to ease the moment.

“What about you? Were you badly hurt?”

He shrugged. His limbs looked sapped of strength. “I doubt you need to ask. You can assess me as well as I can myself.”

I grimaced. We’d been through the same training, after all. “Tell me how you think you are.”

“Just shock I think. Some bruises.”

I nodded, knowing he was in pain, and knowing he knew I knew he was in pain, and that I knew... well, whatever the hell any of that mattered. “So what do you want to do now? You want to sleep?” The moment of truth had come at last. I’d submitted to the Department’s demands and was resigned to offering what sparse hospitality I could. Hurrah for me. I braced myself for Niall’s scorn, for the inevitable resistance and resumption of hostilities.

None of it came.