Assassin (22 page)

Hell.

Makedde hurt all over. She’d felt this way once before, after skydiving for the first time on Vancouver Island and landing hard on unforgiving, dry ground, her technique less than perfect. Now her quads ached with the same familiar shooting pains as she stood up from the hotel bed and paced the room slowly, agitated and unable to sit still. Her left wrist was numb beneath a bundle of ice cubes wrapped in a plastic shopping bag. When she’d jumped from the mezzanine window she’d taken most of the weight of the fall evenly on her motorcycle boots before falling backwards and to the left. An impressive purple bruise was already coming up on her hip and backside. It would be black by morning. Her wrist had not fared well, but she could rotate it. No broken bones.

He’s at his hotel now.

She’d been watching Andy’s movements on the GPS of her iPhone. Barely sixty minutes after the incident, his car had left Canberra and started the drive to Sydney. News travelled fast. He’d driven right to St Vincent’s Public Hospital in
Darlinghurst, presumably to either offer support to Jimmy as a wounded colleague, or — and Mak worried this was the sad reality — to offer Jimmy’s family his condolences. Mak feared the worst.

That poor family.

Andy had driven to a location in the city, not far from where Mak was staying. The tracker on his Honda had remained stationary for the past hour. He was probably settled in for the night. Mak felt she could no longer stew alone over what had happened and his proximity drew her like a moth to the proverbial flame. She lifted the bag of ice off her wrist and rubbed the cool red skin beneath. She circled her wrist one way, then the other. Yes, it would be okay. Wincing from the tenderness of her quads, she padded to the bathroom, clad only in fresh underwear and a bra. The mirror was foggy and the floor still wet from her shower. She tossed the dripping bag of ice in the bin and wiped a space of mirror clear with one palm.
Okay. Here we go.
Grateful for the popularity of the Mardi Gras drag culture in nearby Darlinghurst, she picked up the two good-quality wigs she’d purchased in a shop on Oxford Street and held them up next to her reflection. The long, wavy red or the shaggy, streaky brunette? Perhaps the red, she decided. She pulled her damp, dyed hair back in a tight ponytail and stretched the red wig over her head with both hands, adjusting the netting and pulling the loose waves of natural-looking reddish human hair forwards over her temples.

That’ll work.

Mak dressed herself in a simple T-shirt, black jeans and boots and her trench coat, and locked her room. She made her way towards Andy’s car by foot, following the directions on her phone. It was in the car park of a mid-range hotel near
World Square. The hotel had half-decent security; a swipe key was needed to get up to the guest floors and she felt sure they weren’t about to give out his room number without permission. She would just have to try the obvious way of getting to his room, she decided. The bar was cleared of patrons on this weekday night, and Mak waited until the lobby was quiet before approaching. At this hour, only a middle-aged, well-groomed receptionist in a neat suit, tie and nametag manned the reception desk. He looked like he had been working there for some time.

‘Hello,’ Mak said casually, leaning across cold marble. ‘I’m here with Andrew Flynn. It’s room …’ She trailed off. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘He’s a guest?’ the man said.

Mak nodded and gave an impatient but friendly smile. Her eyes flicked to the clock above the desk. It was nearing ten-thirty.

‘And your name, miss?’

‘Cassandra,’ she responded, and flinched as soon as the name popped out of her mouth.

He eyed her a bit strangely as he called up to Andy’s room. ‘Mr Flynn, Cassandra is in the lobby. Shall I send her up?’

Oh hell.
Andy wouldn’t like that one bit.

A long moment passed, nothing apparently said on either side. Mak tensed. She was relieved when the receptionist finally replied, ‘Yes, sir. I will,’ into the phone and told Mak he would swipe her up. He abandoned the desk to lead her to the elevator where he used his key, hit the button for level 22 and wished her a good evening. A few minutes later Mak was on Andy’s floor. The halls were quiet except for the faint sound of a television murmuring somewhere. She followed the signs
to 2202, knocked and instantly heard a rustling at the door. A shadow moved across the peephole, and the door opened with the faint swoosh of hinge and carpet.

And there he was — her green-eyed ex-lover, barefoot and tall, wearing a pair of denim jeans and a black collared shirt, unbuttoned a few notches. Despite looking stressed, he struck her as incredibly handsome.

Andy clapped eyes on her eagerly. ‘It’s risky for you to be here,’ he said and quickly ushered her inside. He moved past her to peer into the hotel corridor. He looked both ways and, satisfied, locked the door and slid the safety chain across. He folded his arms. ‘So your name is Cassandra, huh?’ He looked unimpressed.

‘I’m sorry, Andy. It was the first name out of my mouth. I needed you to know it was me,’ she explained. ‘Not the best choice, I agree.’

He shrugged and showed her into his room. He closed the curtains, shutting out the night glow of Sydney’s lights. Mak pulled off the red, wavy locks with one hand and tossed the wig on the edge of his neatly made hotel bed. She ran her fingertips over her scalp, freeing her thick hair, which was still slightly damp at the roots. His room was a decent size, with a small sitting area and a king-sized bed. A tumbler sat next to the minibar, just a scrap of amber liquid left in it. She thought she’d smelled a touch of whisky on his breath.

‘Please tell me he’s okay,’ she said.

Andy looked at her hard. Blood vessels left red, jagged lines across the whites of his eyes. There was a lot of hurt there — hurt for what was happening with Jimmy and hurt for what had gone before.

‘Tell me,’ she demanded.

He looked away and ran a shaky hand through his thick, dark hair. ‘It doesn’t look good.’

Fuck.

‘They sent me home till morning. His wife is there. He’s … he’s not even responding.’

Jimmy. Not Jimmy.

If Jimmy Cassimatis was on his deathbed at St Vincent’s, thanks in part to Mak, she didn’t know if she could live with herself. He was a father of four. She had lost her mother in her twenties and it had been the single most devastating event in her life to date. More than six years on, a day rarely passed when she didn’t think about her mother, didn’t miss her, didn’t feel as much as remember clutching her warm, bloated hand in the hospital before they shut off the machine that kept her alive.

What about those four boys?
The events of this day would brand them forever.

‘I mean it, Mak: it’s risky for you to be here. It’s good that you didn’t use your real name.’

‘It’s risky for me to be anywhere,’ Mak replied, and on impulse, embraced Andy with both arms. She pushed her head into his firm chest and clung on tight, inhaling his scent and savouring his warmth. The weirdest thing about being off the radar and on the run was not the constant paranoia, but the loneliness, she now realised. She’d never before experienced such complete isolation. For months she hadn’t spoken to the same person more than twice. She had not touched anyone, had not been touched by anyone, had not shared any of what she’d gone through. Now her ex-lover felt good, so damned good to hold, and after a moment of rigid surprise, he embraced her in return, his large hands curling around her shoulder blades to hold her close.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered softly into his chest, which rose and fell in quick succession. ‘It’s terrible. Absolutely terrible.’

‘You know you are wanted for questioning,’ he finally said.

Mak broke away and looked up at him. She thought of the officer on the floor of the construction site beside Jimmy, saying she’d shot him. ‘I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.’

How had the police known where she would be? What had happened to the journalist, Richard? Where had the shot come from? Jimmy had fallen backwards, which made her think he was shot from in front, yet the other police officers had run in from behind. So who else was there?

‘Inspector Hunt has fingered you for the shooting.’

Now anger overcame her sadness. ‘That’s utter bullshit. You
know
that’s utter bullshit. I wouldn’t shoot Jimmy, of all people.’ She liked Jimmy. He was brash and even a little offensive at times, but he had a good heart. She’d grown to have real affection for him.

‘But there could have been an accident,’ Andy rationalised.

She caught his eye and held it. ‘No. There was no accident. Believe me, I didn’t fire that shot. I didn’t fire
any shot
,’ she said. ‘I didn’t even draw my gun.’

‘You have a gun?’

‘I do,’ she replied. She sat on the edge of the bed, watching him.

Andy looked grim, but didn’t comment. ‘But you didn’t use it at all?’

‘No,’ she insisted.

‘Good. Ballistics can prove your gun wasn’t fired. And there’d be no gunshot residue on your hands,’ he said, sounding hopeful.

‘Not necessarily,’ she replied softly. Traces of gunshot residue could often be found days after firing a weapon, even after thorough hand-washing.

Andy sat down on the bed, a hand-span separating them. ‘Dammit,’ he muttered.

Mak wondered how much he’d been told. She wondered what story was being spun about what had gone down that afternoon. ‘Just believe I did not shoot your partner and I did not use my gun at all. It wasn’t an accident either. My gun was not even visible when he was shot. No one needed to shoot anyone. That shot came out of the blue.’

‘Why were you both there?’

‘I was supposed to meet a journalist.’

He sighed. ‘Go on.’

‘Yes, it was about the Cavanaghs,’ she admitted, feeling the quiet anger radiate off him. They’d fought about her relentless pursuit of the Cavanaghs many times. ‘I have a Lacie — an external hard drive — of the contents of Luther Hand’s laptop. There is a journalist for the
Tribune
who has been writing pretty freely about the Cavanagh controversy while everyone else has gone quiet. His name is Richard Staples.’

‘I know the name.’

‘I thought if anyone would write about this, he would. I arranged for him to meet me at an abandoned construction site in Pyrmont today, but he didn’t show up. Jimmy did.’

Andy’s frown intensified. ‘What was he doing there?’

‘That’s just it. I don’t have any frickin’ idea what Jimmy was doing there. I didn’t bring him into this at all. I hadn’t seen him or spoken to him since before Paris. And … how did they know where to find me?’

‘Well, obviously your journalist friend tipped them off.’

‘But why? That doesn’t feel right to me. He’s not been very complimentary about Jack Cavanagh. I can’t imagine he would get a tip-off like this from me and just dump it without even finding out what I have. I’m not wanted by the police, as far as I am aware. Or at least I wasn’t until this afternoon.’

Andy thought about that. ‘The other option is that your communications were intercepted. Were you using a mobile?’

‘I got my iPhone in a false name, but I called him from a payphone to set up the meeting. I was extra careful.’

He raised his dark brows. ‘A false name?’

She said nothing. She wasn’t going to apologise to him for breaking the law. Things had escalated way past that line.

‘Okay, so perhaps
his
phone is tapped. I can see if he’s caught up in any ongoing investigations,’ Andy reasoned.

‘He has been writing about the Cavanaghs,’ Mak reminded him. ‘If his phone is not secure, it’s possible it’s not a legal tap.’

He licked his lips and stood up. Seeming distracted, he opened the minibar and poured them each a whisky from miniature bottles of Johnnie Walker. ‘Straight?’

‘Sure,’ she replied. ‘Thanks.’ She accepted the tumbler and swirled the golden liquid around while he stood and downed the entire glass as though it held water.

She took a good sip and it burned the back of her throat. Her eyes stung. It was not her favourite drink, but tonight it tasted excellent.

‘I’ve been making some discreet enquiries the past few months,’ Andy confessed. ‘There’s talk of someone called “The American”. Have you heard of him?’

‘No.’

He nodded. ‘It’s a nickname of sorts for a man allegedly in the employ of Jack Cavanagh. Ex-FBI or -CIA, depending on who tells you, hence the name. Very serious.’

‘What do we know about him?’

‘That’s just it. There’s very little that’s concrete. He keeps a low profile, if he exists at all. Even Richard Staples is unlikely to write a word about him.’

‘There’s no one who fits his description on the Cavanagh employee database? A US citizen who is ex-FBI or -CIA?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘He’s not officially on the Cavanagh Incorporated payroll, that much is certain. And what I’ve heard about “The American” is mostly rumour. He came on the scene seven or eight years ago when one of Jack’s top executives was kidnapped in the Middle East. Speculation is he has connections to the NSA, Echelon, international criminal organisations —’

‘Echelon?’ Mak was shocked.

‘You’ve heard of it?’

Echelon was the code name for an intelligence program run by the USA’s National Security Agency and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters. It bound together signals intelligence agencies in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK with the NSA to scan every single phone call and electronic exchange of every single citizen — millions upon millions of emails, SMSs, faxes — in the interests of security. Essentially, Echelon spied on the world, ostensibly to make it safer. Every one of Mak’s phone calls and emails, like everyone else’s, were picked up by the Geraldton facility in Western Australia and automatically sent on to the NSA to be run through something called ‘The
Dictionary’, to be scanned for relevant names, phone numbers and keywords of international interest — communications relating to possible terrorist activities, North Korean military plans, Pakistani nuclear development. But there had been rumours of abuse for commercial purposes, and Margaret Thatcher once allegedly used the sophisticated system to tap the mobile phone of Margaret Trudeau when her then husband Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister. Did Jack Cavanagh have a contact who could abuse the SigInt system for him?