I met Nicholas quite close to where I’m now phoning him—maybe that memory subconsciously affected my choice—some six months ago. Somebody had made contact with the Cutters about buying some Gremlin man-pack SAMs, but the gang leadership had reason to believe the meet was dirty. I was leading the team whose job was to snatch the slag who came to the meet, then drag him off somewhere to sweat out of him what was really going down. (I figure Blake was suspicious that the whole deal was a Lone Star sting.)