Angels of Vengeance: The Disappearance Novel 3 (37 page)

‘In that case, he’s probably dead already,’ Pappas said. ‘If he made it onto Cesky’s list, that is.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’ Still, she couldn’t find it within herself to feel any sympathy for the odious little bastard. Zood almost hadn’t made it onto the boat either. It was only a sports bag full of fake Fabergé eggs, encrusted with real jewels, and the solemn promise to stay in his cabin with two of his porn pixies for the duration of the trip that saw him allowed on board. Well, that and the fact that Jules didn’t see him as a troublemaker in the same league as Henry Cesky. Larry Zood, the porn king, was not likely to lead a mutiny.

‘What about other crew members?’ Pappas asked. ‘And are you sure our friend Shah didn’t come into contact with Cesky at any other time?’

Jules chose a tile on the spotless white floor and stared hard in concentration. ‘God, it’s been a few years now, and you’d have to ask him yourself, I guess. But no, I can’t imagine any other occasion where their paths might’ve crossed, let alone any direct confrontation. Although, Shah was responsible for security on the day of the evacuation, of course. It was his job to make sure we didn’t have trouble from Cesky. Or any of the thousands of drunken college kids who turned up looking for a free ride after he sent those texts.’

A waitress arrived to clear away their plates and asked whether either of them wanted anything else. Pappas ordered an espresso. Jules thought about having her teapot refilled but settled on a glass of water instead. Her warm cheeks told her that she needed to hydrate. The heat and humidity were going to be murderous.

‘What about the Rhino, then?’ asked Pappas. ‘He wasn’t on shore with you when you were selecting passengers, was he? He stayed out on the boat, as I recall.’

Jules had to work hard to dredge up all the details. As she cast her mind back again to that frenetic week they’d all spent in the Mexican resort city, a warship hoved into view around East Point, a wedge-shaped promontory on the far side of the bay over which the Sirocco enjoyed such a fine outlook. She looked fast and sleek, and as she steamed west for the harbour, Jules could make out a French ensign at the stern. But the warship was still dwarfed by one of the largest yachts the Englishwoman had ever seen: painted in dark blue and white, with her own helicopter deck and runabouts, this super-yacht made the 240-foot
Aussie Rules
seem like a bloody canoe.
Le Grande Blue
and her Russian owner were the talk of the town.

She turned her attention back to the table. ‘I’m pretty sure Fifi and I hired the Rhino down at the marina, where we’d tied up the big sport fisher off the
Aussie Rules
. We had a hut down there that we were using as a base. You know, for gathering stores before we transferred them out to the yacht, and for taking on crew, but not passengers. As far as I recall, we took him on pretty much as soon as we saw him. He had that Coast Guard background. Made him an easy pick. So he would’ve gone straight out to the
Rules
and never even laid eyes on Cesky, surely. Miguel merely beat Cesky down. Rhino probably would’ve killed him.’

‘Too bad he didn’t.’

‘Yeah. Too bad.’

Pappas frowned. ‘So why send somebody all the way to Darwin to chop him?’

Jules shook her head before replying, as she watched the French frigate slicing through a gentle swell. ‘I guess he did his research. Cesky, I mean. When the police seized the
Aussie Rules
after we got to Sydney, the crew pretty much went their separate ways. Shah, Birendra and their lads headed for home. The bloody Aussies tossed poor Mr Lee in jail – called him an illegal immigrant and deported him for Indonesia about a week later. I haven’t heard from him since. The rest of the crew were fine, probably because they were all Europeans.’ She shook her head again, in disgust now. ‘And the Yanks, of course, the refugees, they were double-plus good because they were all rich and white, right? I think Canberra was taking in as many Americans as it could at that point, probably hoping to gather enough of them down here that they’d have first call on what was left of the US military if the shit hit the fan.’

A small lift of his massive shoulders signalled Pappas’s agreement. Old news.

‘So, within a couple of days, everyone had scattered. Except for the Rhino and myself. After the cops seized the yacht, and pretty much everything on it, apart from a few trinkets and baubles I managed to stash away to pay off the Gurkhas, I was broke. The Rhino was no better off, so we talked it over and agreed to go into the . . . er, salvage business.’

Pappas grinned at the euphemism.

‘We’d got lucky with Greg Norman’s yacht,’ she continued, ‘and figured there might be some more easy pickings like that out there. Had to have been a couple of thousand vessels affected by the Wave, just drifting on the ocean.’

‘And how’d that work out for you?’

‘Not nearly as well as I had imagined,’ she admitted. ‘It took us a couple of weeks to organise passage back across the Pacific, and by the time we’d done that it was too late. The place was swarming with pirates who’d come up from the south. Anyway, to cut a long and dreary story short, after the Wave lifted, we decided to try our luck back on shore. That ended with us in New York, having our arses pulled out of the fire by a couple of US Army Rangers and Commando Barbie . . . Well, actually, we got the Rangers’ cocks off the chopping block, and they paid us back with a helicopter ride. For a slice of our profits, which turned out to be one-tenth of one-per-cent of fuck all.’

Now Pappas regarded her with a quizzical look, which may have been questioning her judgment, or even her sanity, in having gone to New York in the first place. Or maybe it was in reaction to her and Rhino having welched on a deal with a couple of heavily armed special operators. She shrugged.

‘The Rangers were cool. We ran into them about a week later. Told them what had happened. They were somewhat pissed, but then they would’ve been dead if we hadn’t stuck our noses in their business in the first place. We called it even.’

Shaking his head, as though he were having trouble keeping it all straight, Nick Pappas checked his digital recorder to make sure he still had disk space.

‘So, anyway,’ said Jules, ‘the Rhino and I had been working together for quite a while by the time Cesky made his first attempt on us, back last April or whenever it was. I guess he decided on a two-for-one deal. As somebody who’s not unfamiliar with the odd scam, I do have to give him credit for how he put it together. He played us like a pair of fools, led us by the nose all the way into New York and put us exactly where he wanted us – right in the middle of a bloody war, where he could have us slotted and nobody would even notice. Unfortunately for him, he should’ve hired a better class of goon. But then, even if he had, I don’t know that they’d have been much chop against the Bond-girl fantasy we ran into. Seriously, Nick, I don’t know that 007 himself would have stood much of a chance against her.’

The waitress returned with a single shot of coffee in a small stainless-steel cup. Pappas nodded before downing it in one swallow and turning back towards Julianne.

‘Yeah, Shah told me a little about this woman. All second-hand from you, of course. She sounds interesting.’

‘Interesting?’ she laughed. ‘I suppose so.’

‘She wasn’t special forces,’ said Pappas, sounding very sure of himself. ‘She must’ve been NIA. Or possibly Echelon. They’ve got some scary fuckers working for them, let me tell you. And they’re all grumpy as hell since the Vancouver treaty dragged them into the light of day. Yeah, it’s interesting . . . I wonder what she was doing there. They almost never operate in-house.’

He seemed so intrigued by the woman who had saved their lives in Manhattan, and surprisingly confident about her possible back story, that it gave Jules pause to wonder whether Nick Pappas’s own background might’ve involved a tad more skulduggery and spooking about the place than was seemly. Even for an old boy of the Special Air Service.

‘I’d very much like to visit Rhino, if I could,’ she told him. ‘Do you think that might be possible? I’ve been sick with worry.’

He thumbed off the power switch on his digital recorder and relaxed just a little, reclining back in his chair and spinning the tiny stainless-steel espresso cup on its stainless-steel saucer. A terrible affectation, in Julianne’s opinion. The stainless steel, that was. Coffee should be served in a proper cup.

‘I’ve got a few things to chase up here,’ Pappas said, tapping the recorder with one finger. ‘If it turns out Cesky’s knocked off half-a-dozen people, it might be possible to handle this straight up. Just turn it over to the authorities and let them sort it out. After all, he’d have a hell of a time explaining the coincidence.’

She didn’t much fancy that idea. Jules’s father had inculcated in her a deep distrust of the authorities, because of how difficult they made it for him to separate gullible characters from their hard-earned quids without legal consequence. On general principle, she did everything she could to avoid dealing with agents of the state. In this case, however, she could discern a clear and present danger in Henry Cesky. As she’d been reminded, down in Shah’s wine cellar the night before, he was a bum chum of the US President; she was a smuggler, a thief, a killer in her own right. And, never to be forgotten in this part of the world, Jules was the woman who had hosed the sticky remains of Greg Norman off the poop deck of his yacht, before sailing away on her without so much as a by-your-leave.

Pappas picked up on her discomfort immediately. ‘I know you have issues, and I’m not saying we’re about to pop into the local wallopers and file a formal complaint.’

‘Oh Jesus, no,’ said Jules, remembering the trip to Bagot Road with Shah and Downing. ‘I wouldn’t trust those slick bastards as far as I could throw them.’

‘All I’m saying, Julianne, is you have to accept that this guy, if he is responsible, may well be beyond your power.’

‘What power?’

‘Exactly. But this is real, not a trashy movie. Guys like James Kipper, they don’t want shit like this blowing back on them. If Cesky is your guy, they’ll cut him loose. It’s just a question of how we get that information to them.’

‘I’m open to suggestions,’ she replied, with not a little bit of sarcasm in her tone.

He smiled. ‘You leave that to me. You have other things to worry about. If you want to go see your mate, it’d be best if you didn’t just roll in with a six-pack and a get-well-soon card. Somebody tried to blow him up, and a couple of other punters died because of that. Wherever they’ve got Rhino now, the police will be keeping an eye on him, and everybody who comes to visit. If you’re going to go calling on Mr Ross, you might want to give Piers a bell. He can send you along on official business, so to speak. Let him set it up, and just present yourself as one of his junior lawyers when you get there.’

She nodded. It would mean having to pick up some office clothes, but that wouldn’t take more than an hour or so in the city.

‘And my other little problem?’

‘The bloke over here now who wants to kill you, you mean?’ Pappas grinned. ‘I’m afraid that unless I can make some headway,’ he added, holding up his notes, ‘we’re going to have to go with our original plan. Put you out there. Let them try. And hope we can reach out and grab them before they put a bullet in the back of your neck, or a bomb under your arse. How’s that sound?’

‘Spiffing.’

To the aide’s credit, his cheesy grin didn’t freeze in place and shatter when Colonel Murdoch went upside his head. Tusk Musso looked as though he was about to have a litter of kittens, but if anything, McCutcheon’s smile beamed even wider and sunnier than before.

‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘I’m sure you’re exaggerating. We do take security very seriously over at Fort Hood. I had to stop at two checkpoints myself coming here. That’s why we invited you down – we have a real security problem.’

The two men lowered themselves into their armchairs as one of the off-duty enlisted arrived to take Caitlin’s drinks order. In many ways, it was a very informal bar based on the honour system. A large pickle jar full of newbies watched by what she assumed was an off-duty sergeant ensured that it would remain honourable. Soldiers and civilians could and did walk behind the bar to get what they were looking for, holding it up for the non-com’s approval before dropping their coin into the jar. The drinks were free, government salvage, but the tips went to the staff.

‘I think I saw a bottle of Highland Park back there. If I could get one of those with a single ice cube, that’d be great,’ she told their waitress. ‘And in a decent glass, please, the crystal. If you’re gonna drink well, you should treat your drink well.’

Musso and McCutcheon both called for resupply on the beers and the female soldier disappeared to fill the order. At the far end of the room was a massive media wall. A pair of Rangers sat on recliner lounges with game controllers in their hands, firing at some sort of alien on the sixty-inch plasma. Thank Christ they wore earphones. Two other men worked around the room picking up the empties and polishing the tables down.

‘Is this on the duty roster?’ she asked.

‘Yep,’ said Musso. ‘Probably the most popular duty we have. I’ve always been surprised that it’s worked as well as it has.’

Caitlin returned her attention to the fixer-in-chief of the Blackstone administration, fixing him with a gamma ray stare.

‘I’ll make a judgment about that security situation of yours in the next couple of days, Mr McCutcheon. But I’ve already made a judgment about the unnecessary harassment and intimidation of federal officers within the administrative area of Fort Hood and Killeen. Before I lift a finger on this project, you will take measures to ensure this harassment ends. Immediately.’

The ambient noise level in the hotel bar fell away completely. Again. Caitlin was aware of everybody trying, without actually staring, to follow what was happening within the little tableau presented by the three of them. Musso looked deeply uncomfortable but willing to let her play it out in character. McCutcheon seemed amused. He held up his hands in mock surrender.

‘Damn, working with you is going to be fun, Colonel.’

‘Not if I don’t get my way,’ she said without a trace of humour.

McCutcheon’s blue eyes were twinkling and two small creases had formed at one side of his mouth as he suppressed a smirk.

‘Okay, you got me. We do like to have our fun down here, and I will admit sometimes we might take a joke a bit too far. But I wasn’t joking before, ma’am.’ He allowed the boyish grin to fade as he rearranged his features to telegraph Deep Concern. It was quite an act. ‘I know that all the way up there in the Northwest, y’all don’t think much of Roberto as a threat. But he is pushing us every opportunity he gets. Before we brought down the hammer, we had his people all over the state. They were openly sizing us up for a smack-down. If it feels like a bit of an armed camp here, in contrast with friendly old hippieville up in Washington State, it’s because we
are
an armed camp. I hope you’ll come to see the necessity of that over the next couple of days. Governor feels we need a lot more assets in the Caribbean, on the Canal, and all the way down through Mexico into Central America. Only the federal government can do that. You have the reach, the TDF does not.’

The drinks arrived, breaking the atmosphere.

‘Thank you, darlin’,’ McCutcheon purred, winking at the soldier. Caitlin almost expected him to slap her on the ass as she walked away. But what little remained of his military bearing, coupled with years of enforced sensitivity training, seemed to have stayed his wandering hand. For the moment, at any rate.

She had the distinct impression he was just playing dumb. For one thing, y’all, he wasn’t a good old boy. Tyrone McCutcheon, she knew from his bio in her briefing set, had been born and raised in Alaska. He didn’t pick up his Southern drawl in Juneau. All he was missing was a pair of shit-kickers, a Stetson and a belt buckle the size of a hub cap to complete the impression that he was a down-and-out bull rider whose eight seconds of fame had come and gone.

‘You can make a sales pitch tomorrow,’ said Caitlin, beginning to enjoy herself in the role of hard-assed Colonel Murdoch. ‘But only after I’ve received a guarantee from you that the imposition of unreasonable restrictions on Federal Center personnel will end. It is ridiculous that these people have to drive thirty or forty miles out of their way just to get to the goddamn airport.’

Having got nowhere with his naughty schoolboy routine, the Governor’s right-hand man opted for remorse and sincerity. Or at least a reasonable imitation.

‘Okay, okay, I get it,’ he replied. ‘You had to take the detour to get here today. Okay. I apologise for that. And I tell you what, as soon as I’m done here I will personally call the relevant people and make it right by you. My promise.’

Colonel Murdoch cocked one eyebrow at him. ‘I’d have thought
you
were the relevant people, but I’ll take you on trust. For now.’

McCutcheon nodded slowly, as if he’d just been dealt a hand of cards he didn’t much like, but knew he could play.

‘Well, that wasn’t at all uncomfortable,’ rumbled Musso, feeling like a third wheel.

Caitlin softened her features and allowed some of the tension to run out of her posture. She had made her point.

‘Oh, Mr McCutcheon is a big boy, General. I’m sure a bit of rough play won’t put him off his game.’ She favoured McCutcheon with a smile of such beatific innocence that after the performance of the previous few minutes he could have doubted her sanity.

‘Why don’t you call me Ty,’ he suggested. ‘And you, Colonel, were you born with that rank?’ He managed to inflect his voice with an acknowledgment that he was pushing the boundaries, but he was still playing.

‘I’m sometimes known as Kate,’ she conceded. ‘When I’m off duty, and around friends like General Musso here.’

‘Welcome to Texas then, Kate.’

‘Thank you, Ty, it’s nice to be here,’ she replied, finally giving him something.

Musso blew out his cheeks. ‘Lucky thing we make everyone check their personal weapons at the front desk,’ he said. ‘Now, Mr McCutcheon . . .’

‘You too, General,’ he said, teasing. ‘We’re all new best friends now. How about you call me Ty, and I freshen up these drinks?’

The President’s official representative in Texas didn’t look wary so much as calculating. ‘I’m always happy to be friendly over a couple of beers . . . Ty. But Colonel Murdoch does have a point. It’s a lot easier to be friends with someone when they’re not trying to ass-fuck you on a daily basis.’

Tusk’s voice sounded reasonable enough, friendly even, but there was no mistaking the steel underlying his tone. It seemed to have no effect on McCutcheon. He caught the female soldier’s attention with a backward tilt of his head and signalled for another round before answering the general.

‘Look,’ he said, showing them his open, honest palms. ‘We got us a face-facts moment here. I can’t pretend relations between my boss and yours have been good. I can’t even pretend I’ve done anything to make that better until now. The two men have their history, and there’s probably no forgetting it. Hell, I was with General Blackstone in Seattle and I’ve been with him ever since. I can guarantee you there’s no forgetting what happened up there for him. And to be honest? There’s no forgiving either.’

Caitlin accepted the second drink when it arrived, but she put it aside. The background buzz in the room had come up again, but she was aware that their group was still the centre of attention. McCutcheon seemed to be aware of it too. She was certain he was playing to the audience, in fact.

‘But this isn’t 2003. Those days are gone, thank God, and we recognise there’s a whole new set of problems down here. Problems that are a hell of a lot bigger than any personal disagreements between the President and the Governor of Texas. We are willing to put all of that behind us, to admit we made mistakes. More than our fair share of them. And to move on with making up for those mistakes.’

Caitlin said nothing. She agreed with Musso that Morales simply wasn’t a major threat. On the other hand, that didn’t mean Blackstone didn’t see him as one. He might be a raging ego monster, but in some ways Mad Jack was also a very delicate soul. Ego monsters were often like that: hard but brittle. If she wanted to gain the former Ranger’s trust, appealing to his fears and indulging his delusions might just pay off. Across from her, however, leaning back deep into the embrace of a black leather club chair, with one foot propped up on the coffee table, General Tusk Musso appeared to be less inclined to let bygones be bygones. Perhaps he’d been inspired by Colonel Murdoch, the castrating bitch from central casting. Or perhaps he just felt like getting his own back for all the hours he’d spent trapped at McCutcheon’s roadblocks.

‘I would hope, Ty,’ he said, carefully enunciating each word, ‘that if you’re not just feeding us a line, if your boss is serious about a rapprochement, then it would extend to a lot more than simply coordinating deployments between your militia and the real military.’

If the old Marine Corps lawyer was trying to be elaborately offensive, McCutcheon wasn’t rising to the bait. He absorbed any insult and waited for Musso to continue.

‘Because, Ty, I don’t think I need to list my grievances with your administration. You would be well aware of them. Even disregarding the way you run things in the Hood, there is the matter of the security situation within the Mandate, which we very foolishly handed over to you. There’s the matter of the federal–state accords, the revenue-sharing deals, the contracts and treaties you’ve been signing
ultra vires
with foreign corporations and powers, and . . . Well, I’m sorry – I said I wasn’t going to list my grievances, but there, I went and did it anyway. Because they are
grievances
, Ty. Real and legitimate grievances. And I’m disinclined to trade favours over them, just because Blackstone has his pantaloons in a twist over Roberto.’

McCutcheon made an effort to interject but Musso waved him off.

‘The President takes the security of the nation very seriously. If he thinks there’s a threat from Morales, he will crush him like a bug. I guarantee that. But security doesn’t come from guns alone. The only thing that comes from the barrel of a gun is a fucking bullet, not security. If this country is ever to be secure again, it won’t be because of a president tossing a couple of regiments here and there, or moving the
Lincoln
out of the Pacific and into the Caribbean and the Atlantic. It will be because we all decide to work together to make ourselves strong again. Do you think we can do that, Ty? Do you think we can get past everything that happened in the last few years and work together?’

Caitlin took a sip from her single malt and regarded McCutcheon with a neutral expression. There was a reason why Blackstone had sent him into the enemy camp. He didn’t disappoint.

‘Can we kiss and make up? Fuck yes! We might have differences of opinion, but our interests are the same at heart. We just want the best for the country. Honest Injun now – if you can take just a couple of steps towards us, I know Jackson Blackstone will meet you halfway, sir.’

The moment hung suspended while everybody waited on Tusk Musso’s response. Caitlin could feel the sense of relief through her pores when he nodded and growled, ‘Okay then. Let’s try.’

Maintaining her cover, Echelon’s senior field agent displayed no reaction beyond taking another drink and watching McCutcheon like a hunter from the hide. Her stone face covered her own feelings of uncertainty. Had Musso planned to go off like that? Or had he been inspired by McCutcheon’s response to the uncompromising Colonel Murdoch? Even more intriguing, why had Tusk spoken in the anodyne euphemism about the security situation in the Federal Mandate? The question was at the forefront of her mind, she realised, thanks to the recent murder of Miguel Pieraro.

Lower-level bureaucratic harassment was one thing, amateur-hour genocide quite another. And from her reading of the Blackstone administration, they had some hard questions to answer about what had been happening to people like the Pieraro clan. She doubted that Blackstone possessed the means or even the base-level competence to have reached out and touched Pieraro in Missouri. But she had no doubt that the road agents had been able to run wild in Texas through an act of omission on his part, if not commission.

She placed McCutcheon’s new-best-friend routine firmly within the context of the listening devices she’d turned over in her room. To have planted them successfully, Blackstone must have turned at least one member of Musso’s staff, or somehow planted an agent here. Either operation would require a significant commitment of intelligence resources to the task of subverting Musso’s command. Tyrone and his boss were overreaching, but that just made them more dangerous.

Special Agent Monroe resolved then that although she would maintain her mission focus on establishing the meaning of the link between Blackstone and Ozal, and through him to Bilal Baumer, she would not lose sight of any opportunity to nail the motherfucker for the fate of anybody in the Mandate who may have lost their life on his say-so.

‘I think this calls for a real drink,’ she said to McCutcheon. ‘Are you a bourbon man, Ty?’