Black Ice (22 page)

Saturday 13 April, 11 am

Westfields shopping centre; a theme park for the poor. Seren finally lured Marco from home with the promise that she'd watch him play his favourite arcade game at least twice, and that he could choose what they ate, no matter how greasy or sodden with sugar.

They strolled together through the sprawling mall, Seren aware of the dozens of other struggling parents who spent their Saturdays here trying to keep their kids entertained. It was fine for the littlies – the free kindy gym, two-dollar rides on mechanical Disney characters, lollies or chips purchased from Franklins all worked well enough to keep a smile on their faces for most of the day. But from age eight or nine, appeasement cost a lot more. Brand names called siren songs to the children, recruiting the next generation of insatiable consumers. No-name noodles from the supermarket would absolutely not do, when McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut stalls beamed like beacons across the food hall floor. From nine am until closing, a throng invariably queued for service at those places, like the faithful praying at shiny altars, kids with their pocket money first in line.

Seren's eyes glazed over watching the tattooed thug onscreen steal yet another car and tear screaming away from the cops. Marco sat in the driver's seat, making the stolen car race with his joystick controls, completely focused, hungry for the action. His favourite game. Great. She wondered whether boys born to a life of privilege loved the same game. Probably, she reasoned. Only
their
parents didn't have to worry that in five years' time their son would become the real-life role model for the latest version.

She planned her strategy for the evening ahead. First she had to find a DVD that Marco would love and that Angel could bear, and then bribery food to try to make up to him for leaving him again tonight.

She couldn't stop now. And Saturday night was certainly not the night to kick back at home with her best friend and her little boy. Right now, just eleven o'clock in the morning, thrumming beneath the city was Saturday night, waiting to be released. It pulsed and throbbed, biding time, emitting sub-threshold vibrations that caused apprentices to focus for once, to hurry to finish their morning shifts. Fifteen-year-old schoolgirls drilled each other on the elaborate fairytales they'd created for their parents, about who was sleeping at whose house, and what to do if the oldies actually checked. The beautiful people sipped coffees in cafés, waking slowly, apparently languidly, but Saturday night waited beneath them and the beat started an itch they knew would not be scratched until the dark came again.

Saturday nights in the city. A knife-edge. From the pavements outside, the clubs would seem to breathe, to writhe to the orgy within. The night's beat was like a dragon in the streets, insatiable, gorging itself on stomping partyers, blood in the alleys, fucking in the toilets and in the dark up the back of the clubs.

And to ramp it all up further, for the gluttonous who just could not get enough, there were the drugs. The drugs that made everyone beautiful, that made the world a better place, that made the boss bearable five days a week, or that faded the memories of what Daddy used to do when Mummy fell asleep. Saturday night was the night to binge, to blow, to party, to score. And in the middle of it all was Christian. The candyman, spreading the love.

Seren felt Saturday night breathing beneath the concrete, waiting. She waited with it.

Cassie nursed an espresso at a table on the pavement out the front of Palermo Café. When her mobile sounded, she nudged it deeper into her handbag, drowning the ringtone.

'Aren't you going to get that?' asked Adele, sitting opposite her in white-rimmed sunglasses that completely swamped her face. The very latest release. She looked ridiculous.

'I would have thought that was obvious,' said Cassie.

'Mmm, snotty little biatch this morning, aren't we?'

Cassie gave her companion a saccharine smile.

The call would be from her mother. Wanting to know whether she'd spoken to Jill, if they were talking again. Fat chance. Her supercop sister could go stuff herself, she thought, lighting one of Adele's cigarettes and then grinding it out again almost immediately.

'Sorry,' she muttered to Adele, who'd shot her an irritated look when she wasted the cigarette.

That morning she'd woken again with The Promise uppermost in her mind: I won't go out tonight. I won't drink. I won't smoke. I definitely won't use. I'll just have fresh fruit juices all day. She stared down into her triple-shot espresso. It was hardly juice. The syrupy coffee here was so strong she felt she'd hyperventilate for a half hour after it. Why did she have that craving for her senses to be altered, heightened? she wondered. Even if it was only from coffee? She felt beaten already. Powerless. Who was she kidding? Tonight would end the way last night did – not that she could remember how that was, precisely. When she woke tomorrow, it would be to the guilt again. She cradled her head into her hand, hot tears forming behind her Aviators. This was no fun anymore.

Cassie raised her eyes. Maybe I need to be around people who make me feel better, she thought. Adele was becoming a bore. She was between jobs, which pretty much meant it was Cassie's shout twenty-four-seven.

She considered her options. Saturday night was not the night to try to be a nun. She had a much better shot at that on a Sunday. No, tonight, she'd dress up, make herself feel better, and go find someone who treated her right.

Christian, she thought, it's time to thank you for those beautiful flowers.

Byron shook his head at the loser in the Commodore next to him. Don't bother, he tried to tell the family man with his eyes. You're definitely outclassed.

The Commodore's engine growled. Oh, you want a go, do ya, fuckwit? Byron asked Family Man with his eyes.

Byron focused on the traffic lights; his foot hovering above the accelerator. He knew he didn't need to worry. He could give this prick half the intersection and he'd still thrash him. He tried not to smirk – it ruined the image. That's why he bought this car, an electric-blue Subaru WRX – a Rexie. He'd wanted one since they first came out. A Rexie could beat almost any street-legal car from a standing start, especially with the right driver. And he knew he was the right driver. Family Man, you're about to be humbled, he thought.

The lights changed and the Rexie screamed off the mark, hurtling through the intersection as though ratcheted through a spear gun.

'
Fuck
yeah!' yelled Byron, hurled back by the speed against the headrest. He saluted out the window to the Commodore behind him, middle finger held high and proud. 'Suck me off, Family Man!' he shouted.

Byron continued to smile as he rolled up Woodville Road, elbow out the window, blowing smoke in the breeze. Oh yeah, this is a sweet ride, he thought. He laughed, remembering the conversation he'd had with Damien when he'd paid his deposit on this car. What a knob.

'I told you, Byron,' Damien had said to him, 'you shouldn't go buying things that can create a paper trail.'

'What paper trail?' Byron had countered. 'I'm paying cash.'

'Well, it's a figure of speech,' said Damien. 'It means that you're acquiring assets that you can't afford. Anyone looking into your declared income and purchases will see that you can't afford to buy that car.'

Byron had waved the order for the Rexie in front of Damien's face. Proof that he could.

'
Legally
,' said Damien.

'You ever heard of horse races?' said Byron. 'The casino? I'm a lucky cunt is all. That's what I'll tell 'em.'

'They've heard that before, Byron. They've got ways of figuring that shit out.'

'Look, chef. You worry too much, man. You just do what you do and I'll do what I do so well,' Byron had told him.

Byron cut into the left lane without indicating. Business had already picked up, he thought. With Nader in, they had new orders coming out of their arseholes, even just over the past couple of days. And Damien would have to cook the shit to fill those orders. Byron knew that pretty soon Damien was going to be too busy to worry about anything other than the stove.

He punched in the cigarette lighter on the dash and thought about asking Kasem if he could hire a runner. He knew that he was supposed to be the runner, but there was a lot of shit to move; he could use a hand. Still, this new contact Nader had given them might be enough without getting anyone else involved.

He considered the delivery waiting in the wheel well in the boot. That's a lot of eccy, he thought, and our whole batch of ice. Nader reckoned this new prick would take them into lounge rooms all over the Eastern suburbs; he'd said they'd be turning over a lot more than that soon.

He pulled onto the M4 and opened up the Rexie a little, scaring the bejesus out of some nanna who'd wandered into the right lane. He laughed at the woman's ashen face as he shot past. That'll teach ya, he thought. You bitches should keep to the left! He glanced at the time on the dash. He'd better get a move on for real. As the streetlights winked to life, Byron raced his Rexie into the city to meet their new distribution partner.

Who'd have fucken believed it, he thought, shaking his head and lighting another smoke. The hot new connection was Mr Pro Bono himself. Christian fucking Worthington.

Saturday 13 April, 12.15 pm

After leaving the uni, Jill and Gabriel spent the rest of their Saturday at Central in Surry Hills, the Sydney headquarters for the New South Wales police. Superintendent Last had organised for them to meet up with two of the most senior drug investigators in the country. Cameron Genovese and Olsen Lanvin were at the pointy end of the Australian Crime Commission's Special Intelligence Operation into amphetamine type stimulants.

Last had insisted that Jill take the basement entrance to the multistorey building and had arranged for Genovese and Lanvin to meet them in a secure interrogation room. Jill noticed that the CCTV cameras in the corridors were not operating. She appreciated it. It had been three months since she'd had such regular contact with other police, and she was antsy. She couldn't afford any slip-ups. Even this far from Fairfield, she could still be made as a cop by a civilian.

But meeting Lanvin and Genovese actually worried her more than being recognised on the street. Her cover could be blown in here just as easily as out there. While Last had promised her these were the good guys, the ACC had been brought almost to its knees a couple of times by its own double agents. Parasites within, who'd been hooked up to the highest-level intel in drug enforcement, and who'd used it to get really rich, really fast. The most recent scandal had involved one of the ACC's senior operatives, caught mid-shipment trying to import six hundred kilograms of pseudoephedrine.

Jill paused at the door to the closed room. You've got to trust someone sometime, she told herself, and turned the handle. Gabriel followed her in.

The guy who stood when they entered seemed somehow see-through to Jill, kind of transparent. His suit and wire-rimmed glasses, his hair and even his skin, seemed all the same shade of featureless fawn.

'Olsen Lanvin.' He reached his hand across the table to Jill.

'Jill Jackson,' she said, with a quick grip of his hand. She stepped to the side to introduce her partner. 'And this is –'

'Delahunt,' said the third man in the room. He stayed where he was, seated on the table, his big feet in black boots resting on a chair. He wore a blue police jumpsuit tucked into the boots, and even sitting he seemed to take up most of the room.

Jill reached forward to shake his hand; hers was completely lost in his. 'I see you know Gabriel,' she said, maintaining eye contact, but unable to prevent herself taking a small step backwards. The guy was huge. 'So, you'd be Genovese?'

'Cameron,' he said.

'Jill,' she said.

Gabriel just waited.

Lanvin cleared his throat, gestured to the chairs. 'We should get on with it, then,' he said.

Jill and Lanvin took a seat. Gabriel and Genovese didn't move. Jill sighed inwardly. The boy thing. Again. Lanvin gave Genovese a neutral glance and inclined his colourless eyes to a chair. Genovese dropped into it. Gabriel took the remaining seat.

'Our brief,' said Lanvin, 'is to give you both a rundown on precursor substances used in the production of ATS.'

Lanvin continued. 'You're going to have to forgive me if I cover shit you already know. But stop me on points that require clarification.'

Jill pulled her notebook and a pen from her bag. Straight into it, then. Suited her fine.

'You'd be aware that the precursor substances used for illicit ATS production are also used by the chemical industry for licit purposes,' he said. 'Because of this, it's been difficult to control the production and importation of many of these substances, and criminal elements actively exploit the holes to get their hands on this stuff.'

'Could you tell us a bit more about these holes?' said Jill. 'Last probably told you we're watching a clan lab now, and we'd like to know where they might be sourcing the precursors.'

'Well, everyone knows about the pseudo-runs, of course,' said Lanvin. 'Buying or stealing cold and flu medications from multiple pharmacies and then extracting the pseudoephedrine. That's harder for them now since we got the chemists to put this stuff behind the counter and restrict bulk purchases.'

Genovese spoke for the first time. 'Which has increased the number of stick-ups and smash-and-grabs in chemists,' he said.

'True,' said Lanvin, 'but those are only the small-time cooks, anyway. If you've found yourself a big player, you want to be looking for someone who's importing. They'll be channelling shipments through countries with poor control systems.'

'Like Papua New Guinea,' said Gabriel.

Genovese raised his eyes.

Lanvin said, 'Yeah, maybe. Your boy got links there?'

Gabriel shrugged. 'Not sure yet,' he said.

'How do they get it through these countries?' Jill asked.

'There're a number of methods,' said Lanvin. 'Some Pacific island nations are not party to the international control convention on these chemicals, so there is some trafficking to and through these nations. There's also bribing of corrupt officials, product mislabelling, falsification of authorisations or official documents and misuse of free trade zones and bonded warehouses. Of course there's also traditional smuggling in private vessels or in seemingly innocuous shipments.'

Jill listed the methods as bullet points in her notes. She felt Genovese watching her, sizing her up. She met his eyes.

'You're gonna need our help with this, if you've got yourself an importer,' he said.

'We're not sure what we've got right now,' said Jill, eyes on her notes as she spoke. 'The clan lab's pretty small-scale to date, but there is a new entrant and we don't want to move too quickly and lose him now.'

'Agreed,' said Lanvin. 'Last has sketched in some of the details, so we're giving you a little leeway at the moment. I understand you have a direct line of communication with this new entrant?'

'That's right,' said Jill.
I'm having dinner with him tonight
. She ignored the nervous thrill that came with the thought.

'It sounds to us,' said Genovese, who still hadn't looked away from her, 'that what you've probably got here is a boxed lab being muscled in on by organised crime.'

'Ah, you
think
?' said Gabriel.

Jill ignored Gabriel's sarcasm; these two obviously had a history. And she, for one, hadn't heard the phrase before. 'Boxed lab?' she said.

'It's just a term for a small, local enterprise,' explained Lanvin. 'They can be mobile within a few hours, box the whole kitchen up and find somewhere else to cook. They're particularly prevalent in southeast Queensland at the moment. You often find that the cooks don't even have a criminal record. Sometimes it's just a group of friends who got together and came up with what sounded like a good idea at the time.'

Jill nodded. Sounded familiar. She pictured Damien's miserable face and his untouched falafel burger at the university cafeteria.

'What we're noticing lately, though,' continued Lanvin, 'is that the professionals are locating and muscling in on these pigeons. They just buy the job lot and subsume the whole operation. You got the usual suspects involved. Outlaw bikies are probably still number one, especially with the speed. The Triads and Middle Eastern crime gangs slug it out over the ice and the eccy.'

Jill wondered how much they knew about Nader. They seemed to have a very good picture of what was going on in this particular investigation. She dropped her eyes to her notes and chewed her bottom lip. She wondered whether this was a stitch-up. Was she being used? It suddenly occurred to her that these guys might not be here to help with her investigation, but to check them out to make sure she wasn't compromising theirs. Organised crime gangs weren't the only people known to muscle in on small, promising operations and take over.

It never changes, she thought; bull elephants at the edges of the clearing, dicks in the wind, preparing to take out their rivals. She sighed. When it comes right down to it, she thought, they could have the bust – lord knew they needed some good PR, and she wasn't going to raise her hand for a media interview. The main thing that worried her, though, was the potential for casualties of war. She glanced at Lanvin and Genovese – the invisible man and the armoured tank. When they went in, she knew it would be heavy. She caught Gabriel's eye. He raised one eyebrow, smirked just a smidge. Yeah, the whole thing could be considered pretty funny, except that caught up in the middle of it all was Damien, a kid in way over his head. She wasn't sure what kind of punishment he deserved, but she knew it wasn't death.

And then there was Kasem Nader. Right at the heart of the web. He'd be preparing for their dinner tonight, and here she was briefing the exterminators.