Free Dance With the Enemy by Rob Sinclair

you doing here?’ Logan snapped, stuffing his gun away.
    ‘I thought you might want some company,’ Mackie said.
    Logan closed the door, relieved that Mackie was seemingly ignoring his amateurish behaviour. For now at least.
    ‘Plus, I’ve brought over some stuff for you.’ Mackie nodded towards the bed, where there were four neat piles of clothes. In each was a pressed light-blue shirt, black linen trousers, black socks and black briefs.
    ‘That’s not my stuff,’ Logan said, coming over to the bed and inspecting the clothes. ‘Where’s my bag?’
    ‘Left it in the safe house. Sorry about that. Thought you might want something more appropriate. We couldn’t have you running round Paris in that orange Hawaiian shirt, now, could we? The thought alone was giving me heart palpitations.’
    ‘Well, you could have got me something a bit more stylish,’ Logan said. ‘I’m going to end up looking like you in these.’
    ‘Ha bloody ha. Looks like you got your humour back then.’
    ‘I wasn’t being funny.’
    ‘Do you want a drink?’ Mackie said, shaking his glass. ‘I’m paying.’
    ‘Yeah, that’s exactly what I need. What have we got?’ Logan said, turning towards the unit that housed the mini-bar.
    ‘Nothing good,’ Mackie said. ‘Blended whisky and cheap brandy.’
    ‘Right now, anything that’s strong is good enough for me.’
    Logan poured himself a Scotch and took a sip, immediately feeling the pleasant burn as the alcohol slipped down his throat. He sat down on the bed and took another sip, relaxing into the situation, almost as if they were nothing more than two old friends sharing a drink after a hard day’s work. It was, and always had been, clear to Logan that his and Mackie’s relationship was one of subordinate and boss, and their moods and often clipped conversations with each other reflected that. But the two men had worked together so closely for the last eighteen years that they were also unreservedly comfortable in each other’s company and with each other’s ways. There was a mutual respect. A mutual affection. Logan didn’t think it was friendship exactly, but something very close.
    ‘So, Jean Vincent. What the hell happened?’ Mackie said.
    ‘Someone got to him.’
    ‘That’s bleeding obvious. But it wasn’t what I was asking. What the hell were you doing charging through the hospital like that? Those places have cameras everywhere. I’ve had to pull some pretty big strings already to keep the police off your back.’
    ‘I know. I’m sorry. I saw the man who did it. I thought I could get him.’
    The expression on Mackie’s face softened. ‘You did? Anything we can work with?’
    ‘Possibly. If you get the CCTV footage, I’ll be able to pick him out for you.’
    ‘Okay, leave it with me.’
    ‘Is there anything more on Vincent?’ Logan said, taking another drag of his whisky and hoping that his attempt at changing the subject would work.
    Mackie smiled. ‘There may be. We’ve followed a few leads on the phone records and a lot of them point to the same place. Or the same man, I should say.’
    ‘So you agree now that Vincent was involved?’
    ‘Well, there are certainly a lot of coincidences otherwise. The bigger question is, why the hell did someone trash his place and kill him?’
    ‘Loose ends.’
    ‘Maybe. But why him and why now?’
    ‘Who knows? So what did you find on Vincent?’
    ‘We’ve linked that phone number you found to a passport counterfeiter.’
    ‘A counterfeiter? How does that fit into any of this?’
    ‘It fits nicely into the police’s theory that terrorists from outside of France are responsible. A reliable counterfeiter would be very useful, don’t you think?’
    ‘The terrorist link,’ Logan groaned. The more he’d thought about the case, the less he was convinced that this was a terrorist attack. ‘So we’re all going with that now, are we? I’m sorry, but Jean Vincent didn’t strike me as your usual Islamic