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Raul was starting to sound like another health-and-wealth heretic. He wondered if Hunt was in the audience and scanned heads in the front rows. Then a three-quarter profile of a bearded man caught his eye. No jug ears. And the hair wasn’t straight, but something in the cast of cheek and brow . . .

Murchison, the other surgeon shadowing them in Chartres — now written-off as missing in action? If it was, they’d fixed the ears.

No, he thought. Too far-fetched. But he pinpointed the silhouetted head.

Raul had the audience hanging. ‘The secret of supra-personal work is unconditional surrender. It’s the connection with the overmind that brings us what we need.’

Predictable, Cain thought. Concepts borrowed by a hollow man.

‘But all traditions say you have to destroy yourself. Why should I destroy myself? Aren’t my wants, wishes important? If not for myself, who for then?’

Sighs from the rows. No, this wasn’t health and wealth. More like fame and power. The man was pitching his distortions at the aggrandisement of the personal self. Feeding personal indulgence. It worked every time.

As he talked, barely clad women filed onto the stage behind him, began to chant as their mentor added an amplified stage whisper. ‘Do you hear where that sound is coming from? Yes. Yes. The overmind is none other than yourself.’

The chanting ended. As the women exited stage left Hunt entered, carrying a scroll. She looked virginal, dramatic, gorgeous. Some in the audience clapped.

Raul said, ‘I’ve asked one of my senior assistants to read from transcripts transmitted to me. Listen carefully.’ He stood aside.

She read in her impersonal voice: ‘There is no empty space in the universe — simply a vastness of vibrating energy. We are manifested foci in this vastness. But, more truly, we are repositories of energy connected with each other as towns are connected by roads, as muscles are connected with nerves, as planets are connected by gravity. So you — YOU — can control your destiny absolutely.’

She had some assignment, he thought — the obscuring of truth with facts. Raul knew his stuff. Propaganda was best at catching geese.

‘That’s Karen,’ his companion whispered. ‘The most accomplished of the young ones. He’s grooming her. Isn’t she stunning? I’d kill for her figure.’

Cain was still assessing Raul. Had she done the job on him? He doubted it.

When the lights came up at interval, he rechecked the Murchison lookalike who was now waiting to join the crowd of uncriticals jamming the aisle.

The fuzz disguised it and the ears. But it was the same surly expression, the same hulking body movement. Christ. Had Vanqua been feeding them a line?

Did Hunt know the surgeon was here? If not, she was in trouble.

Then he remembered.

It wasn’t his war any more.

A
fter the show, as they crossed the road to a bistro, he watched how her coathanger body moved — then watched her intriguing mouth sip cappuccino. She asked him what he thought of Raul.

‘As far as I can see, most people can only assimilate truth as a lie. So only distortions of great teachings became popular. Raul’s a huckster.’

‘But what he says works.’

‘Because it strengthens the surface grasping part of a person. He’s preaching self-development. It’s nothing to do with transformation.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

On the way to the car, they encountered a commotion of minders and groupies ushering Raul and Hunt into a limousine. He tried to hurry past but Hunt spotted him, looked away quickly. He looked away too, knowing it could be fatal to stare.

He sensed rather than knew that someone had detached from the group and heard steps behind them in the car park. He looked back once, saw a youngish man with staring eyes. He decided not to handle it there, with an uninvolved woman beside him.

As they drove to her St Leonards apartment, he spotted the tail, an ageing Volvo with a side-light out — a cardinal sin for night work. The guy was either incompetent or stuck with an
ad hoc
. Either way, Cain thought, he could wait.

She invited him up to show him the view. At least that was her excuse. The place was a security block and even if the man could locate the apartment, it had a fire-rated door with steel frame, keycard access and chain. No, the bugger could cool his heels and, later, he’d be tired, bored, sloppy.

Her balcony, one of dozens in the cliff-like building, had a nightscape of the CBD above glittering railway tracks. Like most well-paid Aussies with insecure jobs she’d reassured herself by buying concrete.

She responded to his casual touches. ‘Would you like to stay?’

There was something about the way her lips peeled back as if threatening to reveal the whole skull that he found oddly kissable. So he kissed her several times. She relaxed in his arms, looking blissful, then led him to the bed.

She wanted to paw him but he had the holster to dispose of. When she went to the bathroom, he undressed, shoving it under the bed, and got beneath the covers feeling vaguely disgusted with himself. He’d brought condoms — standard EXIT practice when sleeping with those not checked.

She came back naked. Her body, outlined by the moon, mimicked its terrain — night-bleached prominences and deep craters. Her thin shoulders revealed clavicles like tie-rods. Her breasts were little more than nipples. Muscles lay beneath the skin of her long arms and flanks like cords. She felt like a wrapped skeleton as she snuggled beside him — a warm, bony opportunity, teeth sheathed now, eyes a little wary.

He took her slowly, gently, first exploring her in the semi-darkness — feeling the contours under his hands as if she were a form of Braille. He kissed her many times, sliding his tongue around her teeth, then mouthed down the washboard of her ribs. He’d never had a woman so thin.

The delicate cleft between her legs soon responded to his fingers. She began to tremble then twisted as he worked her closer to her need.

For the first time in months the warmth of a woman enclosed him. He cradled her tenderly, grateful. She came quickly, whimpering and shuddering.

Then he turned her on her side and entered her from behind, caressing the ridges of her backbone, fondling her chest. He turned her again and held her arms pinned above her head as the frustration of months left him in a second. They chatted for a while and he thought of the man below in his car. Then she clamped long legs and arms about him like a spider cocooning a moth. He made love to her more roughly and they ended on the floor.

He asked her to set her alarm for four, saying he had an early location survey. ‘Sparrow-fart start and I’ve got to go home first. Sheet-metal shoot.’ She’d know there were half-hour windows for car shoots, dusk and dawn.

He slept and was woken by the alarm. She barely stirred as he dressed.

He kissed her. ‘I’ll ring you.’

‘Please.’

She’d let him into the basement car park with her door card. The mesh shutter was only half up when he gunned the BMW out. If his tail was contemplating homicide, it would have been a difficult shot. Pros used a souped car with driver and an automatic weapon with suppressor. An iced Vovo with one occupant? Amateur hour. Still, it was healthy to be careful.

He headed toward his unit in Killara. There was little traffic so early apart from interstate trucks, but he made sure the car behind didn’t lose him. The guy was brazenly following.

He stopped at Lindfield beside the supermarket, loosened the SIG-Sauer in the holster under his arm. It was a beautiful limited-issue weapon, not yet generally released — highly accurate and with a double-action trigger for immediate first shot potential. He hadn’t fired it in anger but it was sweet on the pistol range.

Far under the seat, secured by plastic clips, was his ugly PSM. Unlike the finely made Swiss pistol, the CIS weapon was obsolete. But it had a bottlenecked 5.45mm cartridge able to penetrate fifty-five layers of Kevlar. He decided against taking it. This tyro was no Jack Flak.

He left the car and hurried into a lane. There were large-wheeled garbage bins for cover. The back entrances of shops one side. A blank wall on the other.

The car came around the corner, pulled up just beyond the lane. The driver got out, walked to the entrance of the lane, hands wide of his body. He’d grown breasts, wore jeans.

It was Hunt, looking drawn and tired.

She said, ‘I’m alone.’

He holstered the SIG. ‘Come here.’

She walked out of the street-light’s glare. He wondered how long she’d been waiting. She must have swapped with the man, sent him back in her car and stayed with the Volvo to be sure that he’d keep her in sight.

He said, ‘You trying to kill us?’

‘Don’t start. It’s enough for one day.’

‘So what the hell’s this?’

‘I need to know what’s going on.’

‘
Nothing’s
going on.’

‘Then why are you in Sydney? Now?’

‘Sydney, KL, Tokyo. Who cares where I am? I did training here — like the place. Where am I supposed to be? Back in Karachi?’

‘But you were there last night.’

‘I was chatting up a bird. It was her idea to go. Nothing to do with you.’

‘God.’ She slumped on the kerb, arms around her knees. ‘All I need.’

He crouched in front of her. ‘Who was the drop-kick in the car?’

‘One of the faithful.’ A toneless comment.

‘Why didn’t you send one of ours?’

‘Couldn’t at the time. And I trust him. He won’t ask questions.’

‘Are you daft?’ Christ, he thought, she’s lost it. ‘You’re a Grade One, remember? CONSISTENCY IS THE HIGHEST ACHIEVEMENT? TRAINING LEADS TO COURAGE? Get with it.’

‘Yes,’ she spat. ‘I’m not you — the great Grade Four. I’m just a Grade One with a bloody Grade Three job.’

‘The ice-maiden in meltdown mode? Getting punchy?’

‘I’m just so — tired.’

Cold-faced bitch, he thought. Did you think it was going to be easy? Then he remembered the words of a Sufi. Words echoed later by Tolstoy, curiously enough, perhaps because sublime ideas were limited. The sage, asked by a disciple ‘Who is dearest to you in the world?’ had replied, ‘He who sits in my presence.’

It reminded him what a shit he was. He sat beside her, said quietly, ‘Grade One’s tough. We’ve all felt this, you know. And Ron’s given you a biggie. You’re discovering you’re human. We’re not gods.’

‘
You’re
supposed to be.’

‘Give me a break. Look, you’ve managed so far. You’re going to make it.’

She covered her face with her hands. Her shirt wasn’t fully buttoned and he was staring into paradise regained. At least one part of her didn’t need support.

He waited, hard experience telling him how she felt — no family but EXIT, years of punishing study, the terrors of a complex assignment. Despite the endless training, pressure had crippled many people.

‘Heard from Ronnie?’

‘No, fuck her. She got me into this mess.’

‘She always knows what she’s doing. If she trusted you with this, you can hack it.’

‘Don’t try to patch me up, Cain. I’m stuffed.’

There wasn’t much he could do for her and her crisis was draining him too. ‘Stuffed or not, you’ve
got
to go on. What’s the deal on Murchison?’

The hands came down. ‘Who?’ Hard eyes staring at him.

‘Murchison. A Grade Three surgeon. He was there tonight. Are you running him?’

She scowled, brain in overload, trying to take it in.

God, she didn’t know! He could hear Rhonda’s voice again, telling him to stay out of politics. Odd when he’d spent years undermining a dictatorship.

She breathed out, straightened. ‘I don’t know anything about him.’

‘Then watch it. He’s a big guy. Lurching walk. Wavy hair now. Beard. Around forty. If you spot someone like that, steer clear.’

A nod.

‘And next time you contact Ron, tell her about tonight. Tell her I saw Murchison there. Are you reading me?’

A nod.

‘And tell your guy you lost me in traffic. And have a cover-line for tonight.’

‘I have. I’m not dumb, Cain.’

‘You were close to it last night, young lady.’

‘Jesus,’ she snapped, ‘you sound like my big brother.’

‘Near as you’ll get.’ He stood up, sad for them all.

She rose, wearing the strange frown that didn’t score her face.

He gripped her shoulders. ‘You’re beautiful, clever, great and doing a fantastic job. I saw you doing it tonight. You’re also an appalling stroppy bitch and we all think you’re marvellous. And it’s not forever, you know. Not far to go . . .’

She screwed up her eyes.

Poor Ronnie, he thought. She’d been a sitting duck for this one. Someone dispassionate, gorgeous, brilliant — even conveniently bent.

He gave her a Ronnie-strength bear hug, turned her to face the mouth of the lane then pushed her gently like a wind-up toy.