Hindsight (48 page)

‘Douggie Moser,’ Grady said as Finnigan applied more pressure to his shoulder wound, causing him to wince and grit his teeth. ‘That scumbag’s … ow! … a dirty cop. Different dirty to me.’

Lockman nodded. ‘He was at the shop when your cover was blown, and since he obviously brought that news here to warn The Big G, I’m guessing he may want to help us out now to save himself some pain during prosecution.’

Moser spat at his feet.

‘Where are they?’ Lockman asked nicely again, but Moser only glared at him, so Lockman grabbed him by the collar and spun him against the stairway banister to cuff his hands behind his back. ‘How’s the leg?’ he asked nicely, turning him round again.

‘Put another bullet in it!’ Gabby shouted. ‘Or kick him, at least!’

Moser grinned smugly. ‘Ain’t nothing you can do to me. I’m screwed now, every which way.’

‘Join the club,’ Lockman said and clenched his fist to deliver initiation.

‘Allow me,’ Brette said, intercepting him. ‘This here is my specialty.’

‘Ah, the dark art of interrogation,’ Finnigan said, still attending to Grady’s shoulder. ‘The sarge is a wizard.’

Lockman hesitated, unwilling to cross the next line into that field of morally repugnant behaviour, but inspired, he smiled wickedly. ‘I’ve got him.’ He patted Moser’s cheek and winked. ‘I just need to scrape some dirt off before medics arrive.’

He dragged him around beside the piano, ignoring his cries of pain as he shoved Moser’s back up against the brick pillar and pinned him by the neck with one arm. The room fell silent with anticipation as he reached slowly into a pocket of his army parts.

Moser started sweating, his eyes bulging with fear as Lockman withdrew a razor blade. Dragging it down his own cheek first — painstakingly rasping off each short whisker from his five o’clock shadow and pushing hard enough to draw his own blood — Lockman grinned wickedly, and then slowly and deliberately, scraped the blade down the bricks beside Moser’s face.

‘You don’t scare me!’ Moser cried, but the tremor in his voice belied him. ‘Not with all these witnesses! You wouldn’t dare!’

‘Don’t count on me as a witness, scumbag,’ Grady said. ‘I’m delirious.’

‘Did I mention we’d wait outside?’ Brette added. ‘We’re getting too much blood on the rug.’ He gave his men the order to shift the other two conscious prisoners out to the beach in preparation for evacuation and as he opened the glass sliding door to the beachside patio, he found that the door behaved much like a volume switch for the storm and ocean. ‘Gotta love this weather,’ he said, holding aside the drapes as the others filed passed him. ‘You can’t hear a damn thing out here.’

‘We’re next to tear strips off him!’ Gabby said, shifting Mira to the couch near Grady as spectators.

Lockman remained focused on Moser until the others were gone. ‘Let’s see how much noise we can make,’ he said slowly, deliberately, and all the while grinning wickedly until he reached Moser’s belt and unfastened the buckle.

‘You crazy, sick son of a bitch!’ Moser swore. ‘You won’t hurt me! You
can’t …
!’

Lockman’s grin widened. ‘Oh, it’s not me you need to worry about, pal.’ He scraped the razor down the bricks one more time, then raised it level with Moser’s eyes to ensure he could see how damaged the blade had become. ‘That there young lady is blind,’ he said without taking his eyes off his captive. ‘As you probably know, she also happens to be the girlfriend of the guy who owns this place. So I’m going to give you
one
last chance to explain exactly where she can find him, or I’m going to put this razor into her shaky … little … hands and let her down there to shave you to match your head.’

Moser trembled but remained resolute, even as Lockman leaned the point of his elbow deeper against his neck.

‘Let
me
have him,’ Gabby pleaded.

‘You haven’t spent the past ten years locked up with crazies,’ Lockman argued. ‘She’s the only one here who can mess him up bad and not be prosecuted … Think about it,’ he added for Moser’s benefit. ‘It’d be kinder to stick your dick in a blender.’

Moser gulped but tightened his lips, prompting Lockman to call Mira, who was already flushing red with rage and tensing for vengeance.

Lockman reached down and tugged on Moser’s trouser zipper, causing Detective Grady to look away as if he couldn’t bear to watch after all.

‘So what’ll it be?’ Lockman asked with a chuckle. ‘Butch or Brazilian? And if you’re lucky, no amputation.’

L
urking silently in the shipping channel between Stradbroke Island and the mainland, the submarine commander kept surveillance on the docks at the nearest end of the Drift Inn’s marina, where a particular fishing trawler remained at anchor. On the deck, he could see a mini-forklift loading the last crate of ice cylinders; each tank the size and shape of a torpedo. Thirty in all — two sizes, both diameters matching his own tube specifications.

Through the green haze of enhanced night vision, he saw the trawler captain inspect the last tank personally, and as the forklift driver dismounted, the sub-commander magnified the image, at the same time focusing and narrowing the field of interference for the long-distance listening devices in his periscope to enable him to listen in on their conversation as well as watch it.

‘… and the square tanks would fit more storage space on the same crate,’ said the forklift driver.

‘Square tanks can’t be programmed to swim home full of fish,’ replied the captain. ‘This way we can double or triple our payload per trip.’ He unlocked and twisted a control cone on the nose and like a coffin lid, the side of the tank popped open.

‘Aren’t you afraid you’ll sink somebody?’

‘Creamed by sardines?’ The captain grinned. ‘No, mate. The tanks travel slow and deep. It’s all safe and perfectly legal. Ain’t technology great? I hear the next models will have flow-through systems so the fish stay alive right up until the moment they reach the factory.’

Scooping up a handful of ice, the captain appeared satisfied, as did the mini-forklift driver who returned to his machine and drove it down a short ramp onto the dock, only to find that he couldn’t load it onto hooks at the rear of his matching delivery truck, because a woman with a Volkswagen had parked in his way. She was out with the front hood up, and making large expressive movements with her hands and arms, as if arguing with her engine.

Shaking his head and rubbing his eyes, the sub commander checked his scope again. If he didn’t know any better, he’d guess that she was shouting in sign language, but as he tightened the focus to maximum magnification, he saw a bald head cowering under the hood, wearing headphones.

‘Colonel Kitching?’ he called as he turned from the periscope. ‘What do you make of this?’

Kitching stepped out from the darkened green glow of the map-reader, raising an eyebrow. ‘Police?’

‘Unsure, sir. If they’re undercover, they’re not very under cover about it.’

Control of the periscope changed hands and Kitching recognised his older brother immediately, although he hadn’t seen him in fifty years aside from photos in birthday cards posted by the administrators of the psychiatric hospital, now known as Serenity. And now here at the most critical moment of his career was the bull-dog matron and the crazy brother who had always complained of hearing a racket of whispers, even though he’d been born deaf.

The matron stopped speaking to him with her hands, and sat on her bumper, stroking his head.

‘I know you care, Freddie,’ she said and cuddled his prune head into her ample bosom. ‘I love that you’re such a caring person, I
do
. But you can’t go around sabotaging my car or stowing away every time you hear a future conversation, whether you’ve brought proof with you or not.’

Stunned, Kitching realised the magnitude of the mistake he’d made five decades beforehand. He remembered his childhood, raised in the shadow of his ‘special’ older brother; years of frustration in trying to understand him, all the lessons in learning to communicate with his hands, all the pranks he’d played trying to ditch the responsibility of caring for him every time his mother fell ill, and all the embarrassment that ensued whenever he brought home any friends. With their father killed overseas on a mission and their mother dying of cancer, having Freddie committed had been the only way he could be free to make his own way in the world — and now to realise how much easier it could have been, if he’d learned the true nature of his brother’s crazed ramblings!

‘Hey, lady!’ shouted the delivery driver. ‘You want to shift your bug out my way? I’d like to get home today.’

‘Oh! Yes, sorry, buddy. I’m just desperate to get to North Straddie. Can you point me to the captain first, please?’

‘Break silence with the trawler,’ Kitching ordered. ‘Tell the captain I want him to do that nice lady and her passenger a little favour.’

Lockman appeared on the beachside patio leading Moser by the collar.

‘A new record?’ Finnigan asked. ‘Did you get what you wanted?’

Lockman shook his head, walked past two men with operational mission recorders, and swung Moser down to sit on the timber patio at Finnigan’s feet. ‘I give up,’ he said. ‘I’m going back to fishing.’

‘Where’s the girl?’ asked Brette.

Behind him, Lockman had left the drapes open and the only people visible inside were Detective Grady and two unconscious thugs like macabre throw rugs.

Lockman shrugged. ‘She said something about throwing up in the laundry. You can take it from here.’

He returned inside, tossing Grady the keys to Moser’s cuffs with a wink of thanks as he went out the front way, taking Finnigan’s night-vision goggles and the keys to the old Jag in the driveway.

On the patio, Finnigan and Brette exchanged glances.

‘Did you see that?’ asked Finnigan. ‘He left only the headset.’

‘You’re mistaken, mate. You didn’t see anything.’

Brette glanced down at Moser, tsk’ing his tongue. ‘So, constable,’ he said, plucking Moser up by the collar. ‘How would you like to tell us everything you told him?’

‘He’ll kill me!’

‘Can’t have that,’ Finnigan chuckled.

‘Oh, and there’s still dirt on your nice uniform,’ Brette made a fist and spat on it as a threat to dust him off. ‘I’d say this just isn’t your day, mate.’

‘Echo Papa to Mamma Bear,’ Patterson said, reporting in from the deck of a fishing trawler, rusted and dilapidated on the outside but slick with all the latest military surveillance gear inside. ‘Have located three of the sister ships, all moored and locked down at their regular piers. No sign of the care package yet, but we may be lucky. We’ve got a bead on one of the potential recipients; heading south-west into an estuary in the fifth sister ship — the
Navis Amoris
— and spanking along like a dog with a bone. Suspect the yachts have been juggling captives all day. Thermal imaging is unclear at this range and with so much choppy water knocking us about. However, freeze-framing on replay has revealed that one aboard appears to be female — and none too happy about all the male attention she’s getting. Best we can do to intercept is forty minutes if we break out the jet skis, but we’ve also got line-of-sight on those two suits who signed the confidentiality agreement — in a launch down by Likiba Isle. Looks like they’re on a stakeout for the incoming shipment, but if they can be redirected they could intercept the captives in fifteen to twenty minutes. Instructions?’ In most cases, civilian police held jurisdiction anyway.

A long silence followed, broken eventually by a crackle of static.

‘Sat-obs confirms location of two suits, plus the missing yacht with two captives aboard, one female. Well done, Echo Papa. You just located the captives. However, the two suits are currently rated as “do-not-disturb”. Therefore, proceed to and observe new objective, but do not engage; repeat — do not engage. Be advised that the care package is now en route with Alpha Lima. Beta team will follow soon. If opportunity presents, your orders are to reacquire, deliver and complete the mission in accordance with stages one and two. Mamma Bear also advises: don’t drop the package again or you won’t enjoy your homecoming.’

Mira opened her eyes in the warm cabin, feeling queasy, not just from the motion of the
Edukitty
as it raced south, following the coastline out of the stormy bay into open ocean. With Gabby at the helm, the trip seemed as smooth as the car ferry despite their much higher speed and their destination ahead in more troubled waters. Her mind and stomach still reeled in the aftermath of the mad rage she’d felt as she’d slashed great wedges of flesh from Moser’s belly and lower regions — in memory now, if not in deed. She’d held the razor in her hand, and she’d lunged at him. She’d tasted the acid-hot fever of revenge for everything his people had done to Ben and Mel. She’d smelled blood in the bathroom and overheard enough to fuel her fears that something more terrible had happened to them, but when Moser spilled his guts in fear before she’d reached him, Lockman had been swift in preventing her from sinking to that level again. First Kitching, then Greggie and now Moser. Her hatred had boiled so hot each time, it made her feel like an animal.

Since then, Lockman had been avoiding her. He’d said nothing at all in Mel’s car on the long way round the roads to his truck, and nothing much since then that wasn’t also meant for Gabby. Mira couldn’t hear him out there in the rain at all now, but she knew he was there, silently watching the approaching coastline.

Gabby had provided them all with weatherproof jackets, so bracing herself against the side wall of the cabin, she moved as best as she could manage down the bucking deck towards the rail to work her way round to find him.

‘Can you believe all the fishing trawlers coming in?’ Gabby asked from the helm. ‘It’s like every dinky-boated fisherman from here to Sydney is flocking in this year for the Straddie Classic.’

‘They’re not all here for the competition,’ Lockman replied solemnly. ‘One of them has my old team aboard, looking for Mira.’ An ominous quiet fell upon him again despite the applause of waves against the hull, but Mira sensed him become aware of her as she arrived to stand beside him at the rail. She felt the air bristle, causing her to pause and choose her words carefully.

‘That’s twice …’ she said quietly, and closing her eyes to make riding the heave of each wave a little easier. ‘Twice you’ve stopped me from killing. First Colonel Kitching in that cell and now …’ She shuddered at the memory of Greggie Greppia going limp in her arms. It was only in the clammy hours afterwards as the shakes and sweats took hold, she could see that.

‘I just wanted …’ She shivered, hoping she didn’t sound too pathetic. ‘I
needed
to thank you.’

He didn’t reply, and though she knew he was staring at her, she could only guess what he was thinking, and how disappointed he must be to learn how feral and undisciplined she could be after her reaction to Moser. She could barely stand it herself. Motivation to save Ben was all that kept her going now, but Lockman hardly knew him — had even voiced his regrets passionately at having to go in and save him.

‘You don’t have to come,’ she said, still hoping he would anyway. ‘I never wanted to force you.’

‘I’m security,’ he said stiffly. ‘Not for you. For the docs’ project.’

The stark reality finally hit her, just as he’d always explained it; it was his job to neutralise threats that began and ended with the two medical scientists. Although he’d proven himself to be an above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty kind of guy, she knew now that she could only rely on his help for as long as he pursued his objective — and after the trickery he’d employed so effectively during Moser’s interrogation, with lies sliding off his tongue as easily as they had for Detective Grady, she knew that he was proficient at deception.