Hindsight (26 page)

‘Corporals Lyn Cinq and Davit Uno,’ Garland said, announcing them before leaving again.

‘What makes you think we should choose either of you?’ Ben asked the moment Garland left them alone. ‘You switched sides on us once already.’

‘With respect, sir … ma’am,’ Uno replied, ‘we did not. We were assigned to watch Kitching from the inside. We’re part of Garland’s elite homeland security taskforce. If you look at that list again, you may notice that many of our surnames aren’t surnames. They’re call signs. Uno is Spanish for one. Cinq, French for five, and so on.’

‘Double agents,’ Cinq said, in a voice that seemed as sexy as her blonde hair and trim figure suggested. Mira had only seen her ghost once while Cinq had been a bodyguard for the two military scientists who’d diagnosed her eye condition. So she’d seen the blonde down in the dungeons, hunting her like a lean, mean professional; however, Cinq’s face and figure looked pretty enough to belong on the covers of magazines.

‘Double agents?’ Ben asked. ‘Who for?’

‘General Garland,’ Cinq replied. ‘Technically we’re neither spies nor agents. More like undercover military police. It’s just easier to explain it that way, since you’re civilians, now that you’ve got clearance.’

‘We never could have bagged Kitching so soon if he hadn’t made the mistake of abducting you,’ Uno explained. ‘We’ve never seen General Garland so rattled, or been kept on our toes so long ourselves. A long run of bad luck, mostly, but we’re honoured to meet you in person finally.’

‘… and to have another stab at working up close and personal,’ Cinq added. ‘If we make the grade for your team, that is, we’re hoping you’ll be willing to explain a few things.’

‘How you managed to get your hands on Kitching’s neck the first time, for instance.’

‘We’ll see,’ Mira replied, unnerved by Cinq’s use of the word
stab
. However, it occurred to her that it might come in handy to have people like them on the team — people who didn’t understand her strengths or weaknesses. ‘You’re in,’ she said, ‘so long as it’s also fine by him.’

Mira listened for Lockman’s reply, but to her surprise, he didn’t give his immediate consent. He asked a long string of technical questions about their service records, marksmanship and other skills, and only then did he assign them with roles in the team.

‘One left,’ Ben said.

‘Worst of all,’ Mira replied. ‘You’d better sit down again. It’s time to talk to the dead.’

‘Corporal Tarin Sei,’ she reported crisply as she came in.

‘Tarin?’ Ben asked. ‘You look … shorter?’

‘Livelier than a corpse should be, too,’ Mira said.

‘I suspect you’re thinking of my sister, Karin. The docs informed me that she worked with you the day she died and General Garland honoured me by assigning me with her call sign.’

‘Oh!’ Ben said as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him. ‘That changes everything!’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Mira said, feeling the same. ‘I can’t imagine how you can stand the sight of me. It’s because of me that she’s dead!’

‘Ma’am. That’s the reason I volunteered. My sister gave everything in defence of civilians. It’s why we joined in the first place, but as best as I can judge from our briefing, you’re still up the Kokoda without a fuzzy wuzzy.’

‘Fuzzy wuzzy?’ Mira recognised the term from every ANZAC day celebration at every orphanage she’d ever been, so she knew it to be highly respectful, synonymous with the bravery of natives in some of the most treacherous jungle battlefields in the world — and after the way her sister had died, Mira had no trouble now picturing her as a guardian …

‘Angel,’ Lockman explained. ‘She’s here to carry you safely out of the battlefield.’

‘You’re in,’ Ben said, and Mira didn’t argue.

She couldn’t say anything at all until she heard Sei turn to leave, and then the best she could manage was, ‘Thank you.’

Mel Chiron arrived home, consumed by her worry for Ben and the young woman with whom he’d chosen to tie himself and his career.

‘Legally blind,’ he’d explained more than once, ‘but able to see some things occasionally as light and shadow.’

That didn’t explain the prank with the soap and toothpaste. She could still taste the pine after three doses of mouthwash, but she could hardly complain since she’d played the first moves and the score card was still in her favour. Still, if Ben was ever going to see how unsuited he was to Mira Chambers as anything more than a professional project, Mel knew she needed to stimulate an abrasive environment in which they could clash more often — and she needed to do it in a way that ensured he didn’t see his mother as the antagonist. That meant putting it all back on the level where she did nothing more than provide help and support, and sit back and let them make their own fireworks.

Platonic or not, their relationship could only end in disaster and, as his mother, she had to do everything in her power to minimise the pain for him. If she could do it while repairing their own relationship, all the better. So she’d made some calls after Ben had left the house and spent all day seeking and enacting advice when she could have been sleeping. Overnight, two of her blind geriatric patients had also offered suggestions during their waking hours, and she’d come home inspired with hope and a few more tactics for helping Mira Chambers regain her independence more swiftly so she could move out. A win-win situation for everyone.

First, she needed to hose off the latest layer of dust and sand from her rusting Jag, but as she reached for the tap she noticed the tail of a paper plane sticking out from their letterbox.

Opening it, she found it blank except for a pattern of dots in the centre, and as she looked around, wondering who might have thrown it, she saw two men coming at her from the scrub with handguns.

‘P
arting gift,’ Garland said, and for a moment, Mira thought she must be talking to Ben, but then wiry fingers grabbed her wrist, turned her palm open and pressed the flat side of a small envelope into her hand. ‘No strings attached.’

Mira closed her hand into a tighter grip to force it back, but her thumb found a short message in Braille on one side:
For Josie.

‘I knew you wouldn’t take anything for yourself,’ Garland said. ‘Alpha Lima suggested it might be appreciated.’

‘Alpha Lima?’

‘Lieutenant Lockman. That’s his call sign for this assignment.’

Curiosity got the better of her, and Mira opened it to find a plastic card, on the back of which, in Braille, she found the message: ‘Permit to keep wildlife. One wallaby, female.’ Underneath were Mira’s full name and an expiry date in twelve months’ time.

‘Sorry it couldn’t be longer,’ Garland said. ‘That’s the best I could do overnight. Normal text is on the flip side. There’s also a kit of clean bottles, oil, powdered milk and everything else you need packed in the trunk with your other gear.’

Mira stared at the sky, unsure of what to say; on the one hand surprised and somewhat grateful, but also frustrated and angry that the general had gone ahead and arranged a permit for a year without asking about Mira’s own plans for the wallaby — and that Lieutenant Lockman was keeping the general so well informed about such details; relatively irrelevant compared to the rest of her situation. If the permit to keep wildlife had come from Ben, she would have felt completely different — touched, grateful and even impressed — but coming from Garland, she couldn’t help wonder if it was fitted somehow with a secret tracking device.

‘No need to thank me,’ Garland said.

Mira laughed. ‘Finally something we agree on.’ She climbed into Ben’s car with the joey wrapped snugly in a new and more comfortable sling that Lockman had made for her some time through the night.

He makes me sick,
she thought.
Nobody should be so good at everything.

‘Where to?’ Ben said as he slipped behind the wheel. The engine gunned to life first time. ‘Oh, man! The bitch even fixed the fuel gauge!’

‘And waxed the seats.’ Mira could feel the difference now as well as smell it. ‘Can we go, please, Ben? Anywhere, I don’t care.’

‘I’d suggest the beach where your two friends died,’ Garland said, leaning in through Mira’s window. ‘They’d been seen with Greppia the day before, and while it’s clear that Chloe Greppia died behind her uncle’s store despite contradictory news reports, detectives can’t nail the link that connects all three deaths together, unless it’s via a hit squad. And I imagine I can’t stop you from resuming your own little mission in any case. All the better that your goal to clear his name and mine to hunt Kitching’s key contact both involve the investigation of Greppia.’

‘Is that why you insisted on six guards for round-the-clock security?’ Ben asked. ‘You know you can’t tame Mira — and there’s a hit squad out there.’

‘Hopefully only hired hands,’ Garland replied, leaning away from the car. ‘Greppia’s expanding his empire, but hopefully his little corner of the world isn’t big enough yet to fund his own army.’

‘Amen,’ Ben said caustically. ‘I can see how hired guns would be so much healthier for us than a mob on his payroll.’

‘Hired guns …’ Garland said with a pause for emphasis, ‘are an indication that he’s still relatively small-time and not as well connected as we fear. However, Kitching’s next shipment of gun-running money was scheduled to come in soon past Likiba Isle, and Greppia’s cut for laundering will be substantial. It’s possible he’s hitting the big leagues and can sink bigger funds into protecting his stake. He may run his own security division, and if so, his security may be networked with security teams for the other kingpins. Basically, it’s a cost-benefit thing for them. Your lives become cheaper the richer they all get.’

‘How soon is the shipment due?’ Mira asked.

‘Soon. Already overdue. It’s offshore, waiting for something — possibly the dust to settle over who gets to take over Kitching’s game now that he’s in gaol, in which case more are likely to follow. If Greppia’s grown up already, the feds need to know so their part in the sting isn’t jeopardised.’

‘You didn’t say anything about working with feds.’ Ben revved the engine, making the car sound angry too. ‘I don’t trust cops, period. Not state or federal.’

‘Relax,’ Garland replied. ‘It’s a normal joint task force. They’re aware I have civilian assets in the field, so when you have something to report, you can do it through Lockman.’

‘I’m starting where I left off, and that’s the last report you’ll ever hear from me directly.’ Mira grinned smugly, giving away no more than Garland had guessed already.

Ben took the cue and churned up a choking cloud of dust as the car spun about; however, he barely straightened out before Mira heard Lockman’s truck gun to life behind them and accelerate to follow.

Mira tried to keep her eyes open most of the way, but ghostly traffic seemed to be backed up forever, no matter what shade of yesterday she tried. However, today, Ben’s invisible car ploughed through them all unimpeded, almost as if they had their own lane, while the most nerve-racking moments still involved bridges, fuel tankers and school buses.

An hour later, still travelling south, Ben took an exit which ejected them into cane fields and coastal wetlands and sent them east to the coast, instead of inland.

‘Hey, where are we going?’ she asked, alarmed. ‘Greppia’s store is way over that way, towards the ranges!’

‘Nothing wrong with your sense of direction, Mira. We’re not going to Greppia’s store.’

‘But we told General Garland—’

‘
You
told General Garland. I left before it blew up into an argument. I won’t let you get any deeper into trouble with her for my sake, and Garland didn’t need to hear us disagree—’

‘She will now! They’ve still got long-distance eavesdroppers!’ She heard something click on the dash, then loud music blasted her eardrums — an all boy band singing a beach song about surfing.

‘The sooner you do what she wants,’ he said, barely audible amidst the throbbing beat, ‘the sooner you’ll be rid of her.’

‘Oh, and when were you going to tell me?’ she shouted resentfully. ‘When you stopped at the bridge to Likiba? You might as well drive all the way back to Serenity, Ben. That’s where they do that sort of thing!’ She folded her arms and pouted.

Ben turned off the music, leaving the car to growl through its exhaust as reductions in the speed limit obliged him to slow down entering Jacob’s Well, the bayside village that was as famous for mosquitoes and sand flies as for its boat access to the many nearby islands of mangroves. Water skiers seemed to constitute most of the ghostly traffic now, headed to or from the waterway mazes of low-tide mud and sand bars, while roadside signs for housing developments only pictured the coastline at its prettiest — at high tide.

The main street also gleamed with fresh pitch to mask a patchwork of potholes, which stretched like a tattered quilt into the side streets, where many of the older homes still had the look of poverty — poky, rundown and grotty, cluttered also by rubbish that in some yards was taller and more colourful than their gardens. Yet it seemed to Mira as if every second home had been cleaned up and painted with a face-lift, or subdivided for newer brick homes, which rose like mushrooms between the rotting planks of their neighbours. Rich or poor, nearly every yard or driveway sported a boat like a trophy, not just the yachts, jet skis and catamarans, but also the dinghies, tinnies and rust-streaked fishing trawlers.

Mira wondered how much of the village she might have seen across the bay from Serenity if she’d had a window, and how much difference there was from a century ago. With all the housing now, she expected it might glimmer quite prettily at night, but the thought failed to cheer her up.

Her tummy rumbled at the programmed time of morning tea, but the slower speed of Ben’s car allowed the sounds of traffic behind to catch her. ‘I feel like the head of a funeral procession.’

‘Not exactly a procession,’ Ben assured her. ‘There’s only Lockman and Sei in the truck behind us. Two at a time is all they need with eyes on us, so Uno and Cinq have gone to familiarise themselves with Straddie and the bush land around my place.’

‘And the two MPs?’

‘They scored an eight-hour break.’

Mira breathed a little easier, but her tummy rumbled again. ‘Should I be hungry so soon?’

‘Starving. I couldn’t eat much this morning either.’ He swerved in against the kerb and cut the engine at a café with tables that spilled out onto the shady footpath.

Even yesterday, with a ghostly gale blowing, Mira could see that it served as more than a sheltered haven for travellers. The plump, ghostly woman behind the counter was baking.

Mira smelled hot scones and coffee today too, a combination she hadn’t encountered since her grandmother had taught her to bake in the woodstove kitchen up-ladder in the poet trees. They’d used wild duck eggs that day — eggs that Mira had found on a Sunday walk home from the ghost-town church over the ridge where her blind grandmother and mother used to go to lip-read the only preacher they could see — no doubt suffering from the same optical crystallisations that Mira had begun to develop soon after her tenth birthday.

Now all those abandoned buildings were gone, lost to the same dozers that took her poet trees. She kicked herself for not making the time to see for herself while she’d been so close. She’d barely been able to sleep a wink anyway, hearing Lockman and the other soldiers creeping about all night.

Frowning, she climbed out of the car, leaving the sleeping joey behind to hang in peace from the headrest. She didn’t hear Lockman’s truck anywhere nearby but she had no doubt that he’d still have her within sight and that thought made her hesitate.

‘Would you rather go straight to the bridge?’ Ben asked, leaving his window down.

‘I’d rather not go at all!’ She scowled at him, but wondered if her anger at Garland wasn’t just spilling over onto him. ‘Sorry, Ben. Maybe I shouldn’t eat anything yet after all. It’s pretty gruesome ahead.’

‘We’re not on a clock, contrary to any impression General Garland may have given you. We could eat slowly and wait an hour, you know, like swimmers.’

She stared down the streets of yesterday, preferring not to defer the inevitable. ‘The bridge is only ten minutes away. Let’s just do it, I guess.’

‘Actually, I’ve changed my mind …’ He led her by the elbow to the menu board. ‘I still owe you a treat at a café from yesterday. What would you like?’

To hide, was her first thought, but she looked at yesterday’s blackboard and blinked at the choices.

‘Hot scones and chilled milk?’ She wondered if those temperatures were meant to be advertised the other way around. In ten years of room service, she’d never received any scones that weren’t cold, or milk that wasn’t tepid by the time it reached her on a rattling trolley. ‘
Coffee
milk,’ she said; if the waitress gave her strawberry or chocolate milk, her first reflex would be to throw it back at her.

Ben chuckled as he steered Mira to a shaded table, but he should have known by her tone that she was serious.

‘Coffee!’ she called, to be sure.

‘Iced,’ she heard him say at the counter, ‘with extra cream and ice cream, please.’

Sounds of cutlery came to her then, chiming in rhythm to the music of the street: a young woman calling to her kids, a horn blaring, and the huge tyres of a tanker truck rolling by in time with its yester-ghost as it pulled to a halt at the fuel station next door. Nowhere, though, did she hear any sound of her watchers, watching.

‘Where are they?’ she asked as soon as Ben took his seat beside her.

‘Oh, the waitress will bring them out as soon as they’re ready.’

‘Not the scones! Our boy scout.’

‘Oh, ah … they’re parked up the street. Eyes on, but you’d never know they were there unless you knew who to look for. I’ll give him that much; he’s good.’

Mira nodded, feeling strangely less worried than she had been. She couldn’t fathom it. Lockman personified everything she feared and hated about losing her freedom to another strict institution. She should be as tight as a straitjacket around him, and yet he had a way about him that made her feel safe, just as Ben had at first, before he’d been shot.

Then she heard a car — the distinctive gurgle of an engine that sounded like it ran on detergent and blew bubbles out its tailpipe. ‘I know that car!’ Mira said, able to picture the brightly coloured Volkswagen.

Brakes squealed and tyres skidded as if Matron Sanchez had seen them too. ‘Greek gods!’ she called. ‘You two! What are you doing here? Did you get my message?’

Mira frowned. If she could have exchanged glances with Ben, she would have.

‘What message?’ they asked together.

‘This morning, around seven. Nobody was home at your place, so I left it in your letterbox. I’m just coming back from there now, actually.’