Harry was done with this nonsense. He needed to get on the road. If he was lucky, he could reach the Tay Forest Park by nightfall.

“Why are you a dead man?” Harry asked, fighting to keep his voice civil when everything inside him yearned to punch the kid in the face and turn him over to the first-year recruits.

“If I don’t deliver those guns, Danny will kill me.” Thompson shuddered, visibly spiraling into outright panic.

“We can keep you safe as long as you tell me what’s going on. Who’s Danny?” Harry asked, his patience wearing thin.

“Danny T-Travis. I attended uni with him.”

Harry’s stomach flipped. He knew that name. Danny Travis was Anders Gilmont’s enforcer. The only way Travis would leave Thompson alone was after he slit his throat.

“How long have you worked for Travis?” Harry stepped on a sharp rock and winced.

“Since last autumn.” Thompson hung his head. “Travis showed up at the pub and told me Professor Gilmont needed to collect on a favor I owed him.”

Harry halted outside the office door. “What favor was that?”

Thompson clamped his mouth shut. Disgusted, Harry flung the office door open. Matthews sat at his desk.

“Get out of here, Matthews,” Harry ordered, frustrated the soldier had fallen for Hughes’s trick so easily.

“Sir, I’ve been trying to reach you. Private Hughes—” Matthews goggled at Hughes and Thompson. He took another look at Harry’s face and bolted to the door. On the threshold, Matthews turned back.

“I said out,” Harry snapped.

The door slammed behind Matthews.

Harry grabbed the handcuffs Hughes had left on the floor and locked Thompson to the drainpipe.

“Sit down, Hughes.” Harry indicated Matthews’s recently occupied chair, then removed his sat phone from his cargo pocket and called Nigel.

“What is it, Benson?”

“I’ve caught your arms dealer. It was Lance Corporal Thompson.”

“I thought you were going to find your son,” Nigel remarked.

“I haven’t made it off post yet. When I returned for equipment, I ran slap into our traitor—one of them anyway. Danny Travis has his fingers in this pie.”

A quick intake of breath from the other end. “I see.”

Harry glanced at Thompson and lowered his voice. “I’m not entirely sure Lance Corporal Thompson isn’t working in tandem with someone else on base. For precautionary purposes, may I drop him off at the local police station?”

“Of course.”

“And Nigel?”

“Yes?”

“Once the police take Lance Corporal Thompson into custody, I’m not sticking around.”

Chapter 28

Elise flexed her hands to release the stiffness in her fingers. Two hours of white-knuckled driving was enough to freeze anyone’s joints.

She needed a safe place to leave Sammy. Dunkeld and its sister village, Little Dunkeld, might do nicely. Both riverfront towns sat on opposite sides of the Tay, only minutes from her destination.