Leopard Dreaming (16 page)

Onto the freeway and forty minutes further north towards Brisbane, the terrain became familiar again and Mira’s bad feeling returned with a vengeance. She saw Sanchez veering for the next exit and into cane fields.

‘You’re not going to like this,’ she said, grateful for the private intercom between their helmets.

‘I’m not liking it already.’ Lockman took the cue from her and veered for the exit too. ‘That river we crossed a few miles back is where I ditched the Hilux. Our friends may still be around keeping watch for us.’

‘At least we’ve got two feds as back-up for you this time.’

‘Yeah, excuse me if I don’t get too excited about that. They may be hot stuff when it comes to Sherlock work, but their quick-draws are slower than wet wool.’

‘So long as they’re on our side, two suits should be enough to keep a sniper from shooting you, wouldn’t you think?’

‘You never cease to amaze me, Mira.’ He patted her hands unexpectedly while also cornering a broad bend. ‘Don’t waste your time trying to protect me. I’m the bodyguard, remember?’

‘Oh, you’re no good to me dead, Lieutenant.’ Under happier circumstances, she might have smiled and teased him more about it. ‘Attention on the road, please. We’re taking the next right.’

‘I think I can do the rest of the trip with my eyes closed.’

Mira felt the same way. Patterns of her life seemed to be stuck in a perpetual loop. She’d been to this particular Drift Inn so many times she knew the smell of the clover by the roadside, the maze of cane fields that Lockman had grown up in with his cousins, the shape of every boat in the marina, and the water at high tide or low — depending on the level of mudflats amid the neighbouring mangroves. Nestled against the mouth of a deep estuary, the marina itself stretched around the lip into the bay, like outstretched claws that threatened to tear more natural habitat away from the other bank and nearby islands.

She saw the Volkswagen pull up in the furthest corner of the car park near the ghostly Gallardo, and felt like the queen of all idiots. ‘I should have searched out
this
side of the alley!’

‘Would it have made any difference? We were both fooled. We had the wrong day she went missing.’

Mira shook her head. ‘It never occurred to me that she might drive here voluntarily.’

‘Any idea why yet?’

‘No, and what happened to our tail?’ She’d expected the detective’s car to skid to a halt right behind them.

‘They’re coming. They had to give way at that last bend.’

Mira took off her helmet — carefully — and heard them arrive to the tune of orchestral rock played nearby on electric guitars, drums and violin.

Dark Music; playing with classical tunes. Odd, she thought, since their name suggested they’d be into something far more modern — unless that’s how they drew their inspiration.

She saw the lights on the Volkswagen switch off, and the door open.

‘How do I get off?’ she asked, offering Lockman her helmet. Her legs seemed too short to touch the ground on both sides at once.

‘Like you’re riding a giant hot potato.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Like it’s something too hot to touch. The muffler, at least. Just keep your feet in the pegs, stand up and dismount by raising one leg back as you step down.’

She stumbled only the last bit, and straightened in time for the other vehicle to pull up alongside, but she couldn’t wait for them. ‘Over there,’ she said pointing past the phantom of a large flatbed truck, parked on a skewed angle with its lights off. Mira wondered where the driver might be, until she also noticed movement aboard the top deck of a mid-sized cargo ship at the end of the pier where shadows moved about with a forklift and a frenzy of hand-held flash lights.

‘Anything there now?’ she asked.

‘All clear,’ Lockman said, and she hurried over for a better look behind the matron’s seat.

‘Did we …?’ Moser faltered as he burst out from their car. ‘Did she just track them here at a hundred and ten down the freeway?’

‘Did we not stick to the speed limit?’ Mira snapped. ‘As if being blind isn’t limiting enough.’

‘He meant with ESP,’ Symes said, catching up to her. ‘You should take that as another compliment. For someone who’s blind, you get around remarkably well. You also jogged to this water taxi pier as if you really could see it. And yet taxis don’t run twenty-four/seven from here. According to the sign right behind you, the last service every night is at ten. So if the matron came here that night, and not for a taxi, then why?’

‘Maybe something to do with the cargo ship.’ Her gut warned her not to go near it, but she had a horrible feeling she already had. ‘Give me five minutes, and hopefully we’ll both know.’ For the moment, she couldn’t even be sure she was looking at the night the matron disappeared. ‘Maybe she came here often?’

‘Cargo ship?’ asked Moser.

‘That’s your department,’ Mira huffed and glanced at the bow, where security lights along the pier permitted her to read the name in large letters. ‘
The Sea Snake
. Find its captain and ask him yourself.’

‘
The Sea Snake
?’ echoed all three men as one voice.

‘You’ve heard of it too?’ Moser asked, as if to Lockman. ‘A fishing trawler used for cargo?’

‘She sank,’ Symes added. ‘Coincidentally, or not, the night Matron Sanchez disappeared. Blew up first, actually. That’s the cargo ship your rogue colonel was using to ferry millions in cash ashore for laundering.’

Mira broke into a cold sweat. She’d never seen that ship before now, since it had been invisible to her the night it went down with her, Ben, Lockman and Sei aboard. No sign of Maddy Sanchez, unless she’d been hidden below decks at the time — or lost in the frenzied aftermath of blood, waves, fire and sharks.’

‘I’m unable to confirm or deny either way,’ Lockman replied flatly.

‘You might as well say yes,’ Mira argued, then turned her attention back to the detectives. ‘Garland commended him for bravery because of the lives he saved that night. And this must be where they loaded all the empty cylinders.’

‘What cylinders?’ asked Moser. ‘I don’t recall seeing any listed in the manifest or wreckage.’

‘Torpedoes,’ Lockman explained. ‘They had a full dozen Stallions and sixteen Stingrays. All gutted, adapted and buoyancy-controlled for transferring cargo from sub to ship at a pace between efficient and leisurely.’

‘But the bay’s too shallow for a submarine,’ Symes argued.

‘The range on the Stallions meant they didn’t need to come in. They could sit outside the islands and steer the torps all the way to the wharf, if they had to.’

‘So what specific class of sub are we talking here?’ Symes asked. ‘Size and crew?’

Lockman muttered a curse. ‘You didn’t hear this from me. It’s an ex-Russian Delta III, nuclear class ballistic submarine, specifically serial number K-433. That’s the first ever capable of firing any number of missiles in a single salvo, but stingless now …’

Mira found no trace of Freddie behind the matron’s seat, so she poked her head through into the ghostly rear compartment, surprised to find an engine, while Matron climbed out and Lockman kept the others busy with all the technical jargon — all of which was news to her too, so she tried to keep one ear on him.

‘It was gutted at the end of the cold war for conversion to a “research” vessel, for special purpose operations, or for use as a DSRV transport sub.’

‘DSR … what?’ asked Moser.

‘A Deep Submersible Rescue or Research Vessel, or more correctly in this case, the sub used to ferry cargo between oceanic research labs. Either way, her whereabouts have been unknown since 1994, so she’s
getting fairly long in the tooth now. Presumably sold to Kitching by the Russians on the black market roughly five years ago. Maximum crew 130. Or thirteen barest minimum for short trips, no maintenance. Dimensions, not as big as you might think. Roughly 500 by 30 feet, or if you prefer metric, it’s 150 long by 9 metres around the belly, give or take. So roughly twice the size of the fanciest yacht over there.’

Mira wondered which one he meant, since there’d been three fancy yachts last Thursday that stood out from all the others on this side of the marina.

‘So big enough to stir the mud in Moreton Bay,’ Moser said. ‘Must have one really neat trick up its tailpipe to avoid getting cornered or captured in five years. Are you really trying to suggest it’s been around that long without the yanks noticing?’

‘Apparently. Or maybe there’s someone up high supporting it? Remember, Kitching trades in high-end prototypes and technical specs for advanced technology. Not just weaponry,’ Lockman explained. ‘He appears capable of mimicking natural terrain while projecting a false presence miles away.’

Mira saw Matron Sanchez head for the cargo ship then stop and look back at her car as if she’d heard something. Going back, she leaned in to check behind her seats.

‘Any live armaments?’ Symes asked. ‘Or were all the torps gutted for “research” too?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Lockman said.

‘Either way, he must have military support somewhere in the world,’ Moser suggested. ‘There can’t be too many dry docks around for spare parts or servicing the propulsion system. If it can’t be caught in the wild, maybe we could put the word out to Interpol to keep watch on any local sub mechanics, if there is such a thing. That wouldn’t be stepping on Garland’s toes here, would it?’

‘Except that’s been tried already. Worldwide, there are only five Delta IIIs still in service. Eleven cannibalised for parts. Two unaccounted for, and the rest — either six or eight, depending on which NATO report you believe — were decommissioned under strategic arms limitation treaties for use as museums or reefs. Bottom line? Major components should have been hard to come by for more than a decade, and yet someone, somewhere is taking professional care of them.’

‘That sounds like maybe
three
rogue subs loose in the world?’ Moser asked.

‘And that’s just the Delta IIIs. The Russian Navy haven’t been alone in selling off their outdated assets. There’s a collector in China with the funds and resources to retrofit one for each of his five sons.’

Mira saw Sanchez close her rear passenger door and stride round to the front of her vehicle where she crouched and inspected the undercarriage.

‘Hard to believe the Yanks would let that little problem go unattended,’ Moser went on. ‘Somebody ought to fit one of our Collins class tubs — I mean subs — with a windscreen and fog light. Might have a better chance at finding them than blind, aside from radar.’

‘Or use a glass-bottomed boat,’ Mira called back to them. ‘We could have used one of those ourselves today.’

‘How goes things with you?’ Symes asked, making her wonder if he’d ever taken his eyes off her. ‘Anything we can do to help?’

‘Not yet. The matron had some kind of trouble with her vehicle.’ Mira noticed a bearded man over the matron’s shoulder; a burly, sour-faced man who strode out on the deck of the cargo ship with the cap and demeanour of a captain. Too far away to read what he said, but he waved orders at the other crewmen and seemed to supervise the forklift driver as he rearranged
a stack of cylinders from the port side to the centre of the deck. Only then did Mira notice the ship had been listing.

The driver and captain seemed to exchange heated words, and when the forklift spun about to leave, he appeared surprised to find the path to his truck was now blocked by a Volkswagen and a spike-haired young woman. She had the large hood up at the front and hands waving about, as if lecturing her main engine. Shouting, actually, with her hands and arms.

Hard to read her lips with her head bowed.

Mira edged closer, fearing why. She caught sight of a ghostly bald head cowering down under the hood where she’d expected the big engine to be, but apparently, the one in the back must be sufficient.

‘Freddie?’ Mira cried as she recognised him. His ghost glanced up as if he could really see her, and she staggered back a step, clutching her mouth.

She comes!
he wailed, over and over.
She is the needle, the point of all evil now!

Sanchez snatched off his plump, fluffy headphones and confiscated the music stick that was hanging, as usual, around his scrawny, leathery neck. Sanchez slung it around her own and tucked it down inside her collar, alongside her pendant of the Greek god Sisyphus; condemned to Hades, with the fate of forever struggling to push his great boulder to the top of the hill. In her pendant, the boulder gleamed with the sheen of obsidian, yet violet through the haze of yester-week.

Freddie seemed to notice the pendant too, and his attention snapped up to Maddy’s face with a pained expression, as if the irony of it had physically hurt him. All his efforts to save her future seemed in vain.

‘You sense him now too?’ asked Symes, and Mira nodded, barely able to believe what he’d said about her. And she’d recognise that ugly prune head a nautical mile away. His curly old wig was stuffed in the back pocket
of his pyjama pants like a tattered rag, and she realised he wasn’t so much Freddie Leopard just then as his most timid alter-ego, Fredarick the Sage. Freddie Leopard was much more of a larrikin, always wearing his wig backwards and bouncing about, running amok with pranks, while Fredarick came from somewhere much deeper in his psyche, and always treated Matron Maddy with the utmost respect. One behaved like a bratty little brother, and the other like a shy, unrequited lover.

‘He did stow away.’ Mira hugged herself inside her new jacket. ‘Maddy asked him why, but he only shook and shivered, as if he was freezing.’

Or terrified. His clumsy tongue made reading his lips all the more difficult. His mouth never made quite the same shapes as anyone else she knew, and Fredarick often spoke lyrically, which never made understanding him any easier.

Mira, Mira on the pier. Who’s the one to really fear?

Mira’s not here,
Sanchez assured him.
I wish she was, so I didn’t have to —

No! She comes for more venom! I’ve tried so hard to deny her, to keep it inside me, but she keeps milking it from me. She must be ended!