Hindsight (30 page)

‘There’s a weird truck beside the plane,’ she said. ‘Do you need me to trace that too?’

‘Sorry, ma’am, but there’s nothing like that out there.’

‘Not now, but … Is that clock right?’ She pointed above the door.

‘A minute slow by me.’

‘Then this was all out there at twenty-one past two this morning. Seven soldiers were loading many crates of supplies and a couple of shipping containers. Want me to tell you what order they loaded the crates and machinery?’

A long silence followed, arousing her frustration. ‘You don’t believe me?’

‘With all the fuss going on around you, I’m inclined to believe anything. Even ESP. But if you need to have it verified, I have a friend on the loading crew I could ask for you.’

‘I’m not psychic, Lieutenant. And I don’t need anything verified. Things may be purple and hazy, but I can still see well enough to trace it — except the people obviously. They’re moving around too much.’

Mira leaned her forehead against the glass and squinted. ‘Which one is your friend? There’s a big guy with glasses, two with dark skin, three other skinny guys in hats and one blonde woman with her hair tied back in a plait.’

‘What’s her name?’ he asked, sounding astounded. ‘Can you read it off her uniform?’

Mira laughed. ‘From this distance? I’m not that much of a freak.’

‘Wait right here.’ He sounded excited now, and she turned, listening to figure out what he was up to, but all she heard was a click before he bounded back to her.

‘Now look again and tell me.’

She did and saw the scene magnify at least treble its size.

‘Woah!’ She startled in surprise. ‘How did you do that?’

‘Easy-reader. It was clipped to the end of the bed for magnifying med-charts. I’m holding it up to the window.’

Impressed, Mira took the page-sized magnifying glass and used it to follow the woman until she turned and stood still enough to read the name from her chest pocket.

‘Kippage. She’s a corporal, I think. I’m not very good with rank insignias.’

‘Corporal Kippage it is, but how could you know that?’ He paced around in a circle that brought him back to her. ‘You were camped out with me this morning — and Carrie’s shift ended before we got here.’

Mira sighed, hoping she wouldn’t need to ask Garland to back her up on it after all. ‘Last night,’ she said, trying a different approach, ‘I heard you tell Ben that your gut was trying to tell you something about me. So may I suggest it’s time to listen?’

‘But that would be …’

‘Crazy? Sure. That’s why I spent the last ten years institutionalised.’

‘Actually, I was going to say impossible.’

Mira shook her head. ‘No, impossible is me having anything to do with the military, yet here I am.’

Another long silence followed, causing her to tap her foot at him. ‘You might as well speak Greek if you expect me to read body language.’

‘But you just said you can see …’

‘History, Lieutenant. I’m still blind, technically.’ She explained it as best as she could, including the difference between the ghosts she could see and the ‘invisibles’ like him, and the scientific theories which the docs had taught her to try to make sense of it. ‘I know two of the formulae off by heart.’ She wrote them on the glass. ‘If you need more details, you’ll have to ask them.’

His breath brushed her cheek below the controls to her sunshades, causing her to lean away from him.

‘If you lost an ear like Dr Zhou,’ she said as diplomatically as she could manage, ‘how well would you enjoy people sneaking up that close to study your scar?’

‘Sorry, I … I didn’t mean to make you feel self-conscious. But I tried your sunshades yesterday when I retrieved them from Patterson, and they seemed like normal sunshades to me — except the lens colours can be changed manually — and they’re so dark right now, it’s hard to see your eyes through them.’

‘Essentially, they are normal sunshades. They adjust a little for myopia but to me every shade filters a different time.’

‘May I try them again?’

‘Knock yourself out.’ She braced a hand against the window to keep her balance, clamped her eyes shut and offered them up to him. ‘You’re wasting your time, though. Your eyes and brain filter out all the light that’s too confusing for you to process. Mine too, but for me it’s the present light that can’t get through. It just reflects.’

‘So that’s what the general meant by assets that can’t be reverse engineered without the wiring that’s needed to interpret the imaging? She was talking about your eyes.’

‘Sure, like trying to re-invent a TV screen without any wiring or power to get it working. But don’t kid yourself, Lieutenant. Your general is no different to Greppia in one sense — I’m just technology — a means to her ends.’

‘Pretty cool technology, though … Hue-dunits. Every cop in the world would want a pair if they could work for just anybody.’

‘Not just the cops, I’m afraid.’

His hand brushed her cheek, startling her. ‘Sorry, may I …’ He tilted her chin towards his voice. ‘May I see what it is that I’m protecting?’

His touch set her skin aflame with a longing for his whole hand to cup her cheek, as Ben had once done. She shivered at the memory, and became fully aware of just how close Lockman had drawn to her. No longer a cold pillar of the military, with another sting of static electricity he morphed into a flesh and blood man with a pulse and heart beating close within her space; invisible, and yet the energy radiating from him was more intense and alive than Ben’s had ever been.

‘No …’ She turned aside. ‘Please don’t look at me.’

‘I’d never hurt you.’

‘Too late for that. Direct light gets through the skin of my eyelids enough that it started hurting as soon as I took off the glasses.’

‘Then forget I asked.’ He bumped them back to her. ‘Here, take your hues.’

Mira took them, wondering what to make of him. ‘You won’t force me to show you?’ she asked, surprised, but he only laughed.

‘Of course not. Contrary to what you may think, about soldiers, Miss Chambers, I’m not a barbarian.’

‘So it would seem. You’re so “military” and yet you’re the first in all my life to let me say no to opening my eyes, without trying to bully me. I mean, not even Ben … He says pushing my limits is good for me. Maybe it is, but … The freedom to say no is quite liberating.’ Before she knew it, she was ready.

‘Will you stop me from falling?’ She braced herself against the window anyway. ‘The transition without glasses often puts me off balance.’

‘I’ve got you.’ He cupped her gently by the shoulder and waist.

Careful to keep her chin up to help prevent herself from looking down, she opened her eyes for him.

‘Wow! They’re like …’

‘Smashed mirrors, I know.’

‘I was going to say diamonds. They’re so beautiful.’

Mira chewed on her lip, realising that of all the specialists, nursing staff, doctors and other people she’d known over the years, the only other person to describe them that way had been Ben.

‘What do you see now?’ he asked. ‘Without any hues?’

‘Blue. Everything’s blue.’ She squinted, trying to stave off the piercing pain that started almost immediately in both temples. ‘I can’t look down, because this building wasn’t here a century ago and I’m scared of —’

‘Heights, I know.’ Around her waist, his hand moved as if reminding her that he could pull her against him if she fell. ‘So what was here a century ago?’

‘A bi-plane just flew past to land behind you. Registration number on the tail is …’

‘I believe you.’

‘Honestly?’

He chuckled, making her feel silly for asking. ‘Eyes are the mirror of the soul, they say, and when I look into yours, I see myself. I’d hardly lie to myself, would I?’

‘Now you’re mocking me.’

‘Actually …’ His thumb rubbed gently against her cheek, while keeping her face cupped. ‘I’m blown away.’

The pain grew too much for her, aggravated by her head wound, and she clamped her eyes shut, trying to stave it off. Lockman raised her hands and glasses to her face, encouraging her to put them back on.

‘It hurts that much, hey?’

‘I’m okay.’ She opened her eyes, keeping one hand against the wall as well until the blue haze turned purple, also restoring the room around her.

‘Now that you know everything, Lieutenant, are you willing to tell me honestly, what you really think of me?’

‘Are you kidding? I think you’re amazing — and I think it’s sad you don’t like your name. Mirage is perfect for you.’

‘And? There’s something else on your mind. I can hear it.’

He paced in a circle and came back to her. ‘It’s not you, it’s me. You’re above me — a class one, grade-A security risk. You don’t need me. You need a whole SAS team.’

‘I’m finding it hard enough to trust you, actually. If General Garland ordered you to shoot me, would you do it?’

‘That’s a loaded question. It’ll never happen — unless you’re doing something so bad and can’t be stopped any other way.’

‘So that’s a yes?’

‘Honestly? It’s a maybe. Why, what are you planning?’

‘I just want Ben back, safely!’

‘Then you’re in luck. I’m on your side. Garland’s invested a lot to keep you on-side too.’

‘Can’t you see? That’s what worries me. She’s investing so much, it’s like she’s preparing to keep me.’

‘If the deal is screwed,’ Lockman replied casually, ‘it’ll be something
you
do.’

‘You really trust her that much?’

‘I don’t have to. Soldiers aren’t robots, ma’am. I trust myself to do the right thing — and I trust that Garland got her job because she has the right experience and objectives.’

Mira sighed, sensing disaster coming anyway. She glanced at the purple clock over the door — same position as the last room — and heard footsteps approaching.

‘Relax,’ Lockman said, stroking her arm ‘The team who took the cleaner should have reported that little incident to General Garland or the two docs by now. They’ll be here any minute to check on you.’

Zander Zhou had faked eye surgery once before, so a repeat performance was child’s play. He didn’t even need to be in the same room as the patient this time. All he’d needed to keep up the pretence for the Greppias was a set of healthy donor eyes, and a few hours alone with her in a sterile facility, preferably also with a cold room handy. The specialty tools required were generally a mystery to most laymen — who usually assumed that he carried everything he needed with him anyway — so the fact that she’d been taken to a military mortuary was something that wouldn’t have escaped Greppia’s radar as being promising to his request for an exchange with Ben and Tarin Sei. An eye for each of them.

The arrival of Neville Kenny’s eyes in a milk truck for the airbase canteen an hour later should have slipped through without so much as a blink — except perhaps from the public mortician, who was still in Brisbane, respectfully preparing the rest of Neville’s body for his funeral within the week.

‘At the bridge,’ Lockman said as Zhou injected Neville’s eyes with a pale blue fluid that would help them to freeze and appear more crystalline, ‘it would have looked to Greppia’s men as if they’d killed you. So you’re dead now, ma’am. Officially. No longer a ward of the state. You’re now free of all that bureaucracy. How’s it feel?’

Mira frowned suspiciously. ‘Until Garland changes her mind. Paperwork is only paperwork.’

Garland laughed. ‘Peace in the Middle East is more likely. I’m holding to my end of the bargain.’

‘Overachieving more like it. What else do you expect from me? This can’t be the only case on your mind, surely.’

‘It’s not, but your efforts would be more fruitful if voluntary or better yet, motivated as mine are.’

‘You’re way ahead by my scorecard, and I’ve achieved
nothing
so far.’

‘I don’t believe it was a race, Miss Chambers. It’s the end result we both need to be happy with.’

Mira sighed, knowing there was no point in arguing. Garland would never understand that happiness for her was impossible if someone else still dictated where she lived and how she filled her days. Or maybe she was beginning to, if she realised fruitfulness was related to freedom of choice.

‘So why wait so long to inject Neville’s eyes?’ Mira complained. ‘We should have traded them already for Ben!’

‘But the operation takes two to five hours,’ Garland replied, making Mira feel uncomfortable again. ‘If we’d agreed to a trade any sooner, they’d be suspicious of getting damaged goods. It’s not just your eyes, after all. It’s also your synapses, which had to be removed. And we’re still waiting to hear where the trade is to go down.’

‘Even so …’ Mira heard footsteps approach the bed and something that sounded like a pile of plastic-bound packages being dumped on the mattress while something heavy was set down on the floor.

‘Your uniform,’ Garland said.

Dumbstruck momentarily, Mira shook her head. ‘You’re crazier than I am if you think I’d dress up as a soldier! I’d rather die first.’

‘You did die — and this is an airbase. If you walk out of here dressed as you are, you’ll be spotted from space. Night or day, a cheap set of binoculars is all Greppia’s people would need. Besides, I should think you’d be more concerned about losing Lockman as your bodyguard.’