Hindsight (46 page)

‘Another yacht?’ Grady asked. ‘There are five sister ships in their fleet.’

‘When they took Ben away,’ Mira said, ‘I saw two yachts with at least four men on each and another two zigzagging all over the place.’

Uh oh,
Lockman thought. ‘There are only six heat signatures in that house; two isolated and four roving in patrol patterns. That leaves
at least
two unaccounted for.’

‘A trap?’ Gabby asked.

‘A distraction,’ Lockman replied. ‘I’d bet money they’ve left already. You don’t pit four thugs against a SWAT team or spec-ops with so few in reserve, unless you expect to lose them — like pawns sacrificed to achieve checkmate somewhere else.’

‘A shipment is coming in,’ Grady said. ‘But they’ve never needed a distraction while unloading before. Then again, they’ve never had spec-ops closing in on them. How long has that house been under surveillance?’

‘Unsure,’ Lockman said. ‘I just got here. One team took a shortcut by air so they arrived roughly an hour ahead of me, but sat-obs should have been watching the place since at least midday.’

‘Then somebody’s got a problem with their sat-obs,’ Grady replied, and Lockman nodded, already thinking the same thing. ‘Regardless of whether one yacht was already here or not, if another came and went in the past two hours, it should have been noticed.’

‘It was traced all the way from the pier,’ Lockman said. ‘One team’s just been sent to backtrack and figure out how and where they lost track of Miss Chambers. Wouldn’t mind knowing that little trick myself.’

‘Gaps in the network?’ Gabby suggested. ‘You know, like mobile phones when one satellite is orbiting out of range while the next approaches? Or maybe just the wrong angle view when she jumped ship?’

‘I’m thinking personnel problems,’ Grady replied. ‘The Greppias may be only small fry in the scheme of things, but they’re cleaning money for people who run their own submarines. It’s not too hard to imagine that moles have infiltrated national defence — probably in every country they do business.’

‘Submarines in Moreton Bay?’ Gabby asked, astounded. ‘It’s too shallow. Barely twenty to forty metres in the main shipping channels.’

‘There’s deep water north of Likiba Isle,’ Grady said. ‘Only a short run from the Pacific.’

Mira sighed. ‘Poor Ben! He’s trapped in the middle because General Garland won’t trawl them up until she can also dig up all their land-based connections.’

‘I don’t think he’s in there,’ Lockman said, causing Mira to tip her chin inquisitively towards him, and with her hair so cutely tousled and lips so pink she seemed almost irresistible; a feeling he had been fighting since he first laid eyes on her.

‘Didn’t you say Ben and Sei were isolated?’ she asked.

‘Two
heat signatures
are isolated, second floor,’ he said, feeling an urge to move closer to protect her and he had to remind himself, yet again, that her heart belonged to another man. ‘Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it’s them.’

‘It does,’ argued Detective Grady, ‘if they’re using him as a lure to get her. They consider her valuable.’

‘Rightly so,’ Lockman said. ‘But if they were going to trade Ben for her dead or alive, they should have tried that already. They’ve had time, means and opportunity — and General Garland went to great lengths to fake her death so they’d get what they want, more or less, without needing to renege on letting him go.’

‘That was before they found me alive at the shop,’ Mira said, and a look of comprehension crossed her face that made her glow with the inner beauty of intelligence. ‘I get it now. The Greppias tried to fake my death too — and they have no intentions of releasing Ben. They need to keep him to control me.’

Lockman nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see him. ‘Emergency services were instructed to report that all lives were lost in the fire — instructed by Sergeant Patterson after he relieved me of my field commission. So it’s lance corporal again, ma’am, and strictly speaking, I’m here on leave.’

‘You were bumped
two
ranks?’ Grady asked.

‘Long story,’ Lockman replied, shifting his feet anxiously. He could feel eyes all around him, just as he had at the beach just before the joey ran off. ‘It’s not over yet. Detective, you have to get these ladies to safety, while I go stir up the hornets’ nest; see if I can’t ID who they’ve really got in there.’

‘Hey, we’re not damsels,’ Gabby argued. ‘I know how to drive, and for Ben’s sake I’m willing to provide backup if you need it. Boat, car, jet ski, you name it. But if it’s really so dangerous you should take Grady, and I’ll call in a flotilla of SWAT and water rats from the
Edukitty
. Mira and I, we can meet them out in the cat and point the way in to you.’

‘Quiet,’ Mira whispered and Lockman noticed her reaching nonchalantly for the glove compartment. ‘I think I can hear two …’

‘Freeze!’ ordered one of the two spec-ops men who appeared on either side of Lockman, both bearing Steyr assault rifles, holstered Desert Eagles and belts full of grenades of all types from frag, stun and smoke to incendiary. Gabby’s arms shot up like rockets, while Detective Grady and Lockman followed suit more professionally — then the taller of the two, a lance corporal in black fatigues, slung aside his rifle. With a quick-draw of his baby Desert Eagle, he moved forward cautiously to disarm Lockman. He raised his night-owl visor, but it made it no easier for Lockman to see his face, since he also wore a balaclava under his helmet, as did his sergeant. As they closed in, Lockman recognised them as Sergeant Brette and Lance Corporal Finnigan, both shortlisted by Garland for working with Mira. From their profiles, Lockman knew them both to be skilled snipers with additional specialties.

‘What have we got here?’ said Finnigan. He snatched off Lockman’s slim-line headset and night-owls, causing a loud squawk of feedback from their own helmets. ‘Hey, Sarge, this guy’s been listening!’ Finnigan snapped the visor, smashed it against a tree and cast the broken pieces over his shoulder into the shrubbery, then did the same with Lockman’s night-vision binoculars; just a pair he’d bought himself from a camping store.

‘I’ll need to be reimbursed for those,’ Lockman said, egging them to assess them.

‘Delta channel now,’ Brette said into his headset, then he turned to Lockman, brandishing the sharp end of his assault rifle to remind everyone who was in charge. A glint of recognition crossed Brette’s expression, but Lockman couldn’t guess why unless they’d been briefed about who he was from his dealings with General Garland or Sergeant Patterson.

‘Pow-wow time,’ Brette said. ‘Hands on heads, people, in a row facing the vehicle, then squat slowly and sit cross-legged.’

Reading their eyes, Lockman could tell they were professional, which meant they’d only fire as a last resort on home soil and he clenched his fists, feeling adrenaline pump into his veins as he wondered how fast he could take them without hurting them.

‘We don’t have time for this!’ Mira shouted and from Lockman’s position on the other side of her open passenger door, he caught a glimpse of her raising a police Glock from behind her back — a sidearm not unlike his own. As she caught their attention too, Lockman seized the opportunity and lunged backwards against the lance corporal, falling with him to the ground and grunting at the flame of pain around his chest. He clamped both hands around the corporal’s trigger finger, snapping the bone as he grappled for control of the Baby Eagle and caused Finnigan to shoot the firing mechanism of Brette’s assault rifle — a one in a million shot that Lockman took as a sign that his bad luck must finally be changing.

Lockman flipped from his back onto his feet, adrenaline keeping his ribs from aching too much, as he retrieved his Glock as well as Finnigan’s baby Desert Eagle. He smashed the mission recorder and camera on the side of Finnigan’s helmet using the butt of his Glock, then moved to Brette and performed the same surgery on his.

‘No pow-wow for the people today,’ Lockman said. ‘My orders were to prevent her falling into unfriendly hands.’ He noticed that Innes-Grady had retrieved his sidearm from Mira, and Lockman signalled for him to collect their rifles and grenade belts as well — and as Gabby sidestepped to join the shield of bodies for Mira, Lockman took pity on Finnigan, who was nursing his finger.

‘Get some ice on that,’ he said, shedding his fishing vest and tossing it at Finnigan. ‘Check the pockets, mate. You should be lucky. Helmets off too, please, gentlemen. It won’t hurt your team to fret about you until I’m ready to fill them in. They should be busy enough with surveillance on the house until then.’

‘Fill them in about what?’ asked Finnigan, resentfully.

‘Something bigger than we’ve been briefed on,’ said the sergeant with a grin that lightning made appear downright evil. ‘Salute,’ he told Finnigan, then did the same himself, directing his respect at Lockman. ‘This here is The Locksmith.’

Finnigan reacted with surprise, then awe followed by a full-blown salute with his broken finger, causing Lockman to raise a suspicious brow at both of them, having only heard that nickname once before — in another place, another life. He’d earned it the first time he’d made lieutenant, under a name that he’d been forced to change for the safety of his two surviving sisters and the trouble that had tried to follow him home from a mission in the Pacific. However, that old personnel file should have been archived in a basement somewhere under honourably discharged.

‘You’re mistaken, friend,’ he replied. ‘My name is Lockman.’

Brette laughed. ‘I never did know your name, mate. I was half-dead. I would have been fully-dead that night if it weren’t for you holdin’ my head outta water until that Chinook came in to pull us out. Damn, boy, that collision with the fuel tanker and rogue frigate? I’ve toured some war zones in my time, but I ain’t never seen nor heard an explosion that big!’

‘You’ve got me confused with someone else.’

‘Nah, you’re The Locksmith all right. You got us out of the brig of that frig so fast, you’re either that, or a bad-ass magician.’

Lightning slashed the sky and rain began to pelt against Lockman’s face in earnest, as if mocking him. ‘That sounds like black-ops to me.’ He holstered his Glock to shield his face from increasing rain, while still holding them at bay with the point of Finnigan’s Baby Eagle — ‘baby’ seeming such a joke now as he wielded it, since it weighed more than his Glock and was bigger. ‘Do I look like black ops? Now get your helmets off. Detective Grady and I are in urgent need of them.’

‘Why?’ asked Grady. ‘Next time I see Gregan, I need to look like I’m still on his team.’

‘Next time you see Gregan,’ Lockman replied, ‘you’re taking him down. As the only cop here, you’re about the only one who legally can.’

‘That ain’t quite right,’ Brette said with a wink. ‘This here is a mining lease, mate, and that there beach house is built where there’s s’posed to be a processing plant. Building permits were done on the cheap and filed as incomplete. So under the national utilities protection act, we don’t need civil police leading the charge here. We’ve got all the discretionary powers we need for national defence, and we already got orders to keep our eyes on the place. So if you want to take a peek at the occupants, just say the word. I owe you that much, and if you’re here protecting her, it can’t hurt any of us.’

‘To be honest,’ Lockman said, ‘I doubt those hostages are hostages. I suspect they’re decoys.’

‘We’re here to check for sure,’ Brette said. ‘Make sure she gets in the hands of the right people.’

‘Uh oh,’ Gabby said as the cool rain began to pelt down harder. ‘Mira’s
gone
!’

Lockman spun around, horrified to see it was true. She’d disappeared while their backs were turned, and taken the handcuffs with her.

Grady lunged for the Landcruiser to check, while Gabby ran to check the back, but Lockman could already see from the marks on the dampening road that she’d gone underneath. He could also guess where she was headed, and the thought of her facing gunmen alone tore his guts to shreds.

‘Grab your gear,’ he said as he tossed Finnigan’s Baby Eagle back to him. ‘We have to stop her.’

Holding the handcuffs in her cleavage as she ran so they wouldn’t clank or fall out, Mira couldn’t hear anyone coming after her yet but she knew it wouldn’t take long.

She didn’t dare to second guess Lockman at strategies for escape and evasion, but she could readily guess how he might expect a blind girl to try using the fastest and easiest path possible. So she avoided it, leaving the gravel road quietly and dashing from tree to tree as quietly as possible, hoping the ghostly forest hadn’t changed much in the past twenty hours. The controls on her sunshades remained unresponsive and she was still stuck with the muddy shade of yesterday.

The rising wind howled between branches, causing fresh tripping hazards, while whipping her face with leaves and rain. She stumbled and fell into sandy mud twice, but the scrub seemed thickest closer to the road where the regrowth leaned to catch light during the day, so she weaved her way further inland, aiming to circle around and avoid the most trafficked route to the house. Then the wind betrayed a herd of boots on the road. Hard to say how many. She guessed at least three sets — one pair jogging slightly ahead of the others — and she hugged the nearest eucalypt, keeping it between her and her pursuers.