Worth Dying For

the stranger is down. You’re going to have four guys gunning for you.’
    ‘What do you want us to do?’
    ‘I want you to stay alive. And in control.’
    ‘Rules of engagement?’
    ‘Put Safir’s guys down for sure. That way we remove the link above us. We can sell direct to Mahmeini, at Safir’s prices.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘And put Mahmeini’s guys down too, if you have to, for self-defence. But make sure to make it look like Safir’s guys or the Duncans did it. I still need Mahmeini himself. There’s no wiggle room there. I have no access to the ultimate buyer without him.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘So leave right now. Pull back to the hotel and lie low. You’ll meet the others there, probably very soon. Make contact and make a plan.’
    ‘Who’s in charge?’
    ‘The Iranians will claim they are. But they can stick that where the sun don’t shine. You know the people and the terrain. Keep on top of it and be very careful.’
    ‘OK, boss,’ Cassano said. And two minutes later he and Mancini were back in their rented blue Impala, heading south on the arrow-straight two-lane, sixty miles to go.
    The white van was still on Route 3, still in Canada, still heading east, more than halfway across Alberta, with Saskatchewan up ahead. It had just skipped a right turn on Route 4, which led south to the border, where the modest Canadian blacktop ribbon changed to the full-blown majesty of U.S. Interstate 15, which ran all the way to Las Vegas and then Los Angeles. The change of status in what had once been the same horse trail was emblematic of the two nations’ sense of self, and as well as that it was taken to be a very dangerous road. It was an obvious artery, with two big prizes at the end of it, and so it was assumed to be monitored very carefully. Which was why the white van had passed up the chance of its speed and convenience and was still labouring east on the minor thoroughfare, towards a small town called Medicine Hat, where it intended to finally turn south and lose itself in the wild country around Pakowki Lake, before finding a nameless rutted track that ran deep into the woods, and all the way to America.
    * * *
    The Duncans made the doctor stand upright at the head of the table. They sat and looked at him and said nothing for a minute, Jacob and Seth on one side, Jasper and Jonas on the other. Finally Jacob asked, ‘Was it an act of deliberate rebellion?’
    The doctor didn’t answer. His throat was swollen and painful from vomiting, and he didn’t understand the question anyway.
    Jacob asked, ‘Or was it some imagined sense of entitlement?’
    The doctor didn’t answer.
    ‘We need to know,’ Jacob said. ‘You must tell us. This is a fascinating subject. It needs to be thoroughly explored.’
    The doctor said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
    ‘But perhaps your wife does,’ Jacob said. ‘Should we go pick her up and bring her here and ask her?’
    ‘Leave her out of it.’
    ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘Please. Please leave her alone.’
    ‘She could entertain us. She used to, you know. We knew her long before you did. She came here half a dozen times. To this very house. She was happy to. Of course, we were paying her, which might have influenced her attitude. You should ask her, about what she used to do for money.’
    ‘She babysat.’
    ‘Is that what she says? I suppose she would, now.’
    ‘That’s what she did.’
    ‘Ask her again sometime. Catch her in an unguarded moment. She was a girl of many talents, your wife, once upon a time. She might tell you all about it. You might enjoy it.’
    ‘What do you want?’
    Jacob Duncan said, ‘We want to know the psychology behind what you did.’
    ‘What did I do?’
    ‘You put your licence plates on our truck.’
    The doctor said nothing.
    Jacob Duncan said, ‘We want to know why. That’s all. It’s not much to ask. Was it just impertinence? Or was it a message?Were you retaliating for our having disabled your own vehicle? Were you claiming a right? Were you making a point? Were you scolding us for having gone too far?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ the doctor said.
    ‘Or did someone else change the plates?’
    ‘I don’t know who changed them.’
    ‘But it wasn’t you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Where did you find the truck?’
    ‘At the motel. This afternoon. It was next to my car. With my plates on it.’
    ‘Why didn’t you change them back?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘To drive with phoney plates is a criminal offence,