Leopard Dreaming (20 page)

We need 2 b mor carful,
she warned him, abbreviating for speed and reducing her contact with him to the barest minimum.
Sound trvls mor oer water.

His hands fell softly to her shoulders, keeping his touch light for replying, but she felt so good he couldn’t help but spell everything out properly.

I was about to say the same thing.
He swallowed hard, wondering what the hell was wrong with him.
She distracted him so much, the more time he spent with her, the less he cared about bagging Kitching. Provided she and the matron came out alive, he’d count the whole mission as successful.
Our feds may be a liability,
he added.
You can’t risk telling them anything in case they discuss it aloud.

Hav 2 tell em somthng or he’ll no we r onto him!

He may suspect already.

‘Getting busy?’ Darkin said as he bounded up to them with the two detectives close on his heels. ‘If you wanted that kind of cruise, mate, you should have left my ladies aboard.’

Mira recoiled along the rail, her cheeks blushing pink, but when she turned seaward to adjust her shades and brace herself, he shielded her from the rock star’s sight, affording her as much privacy as he could manage without crowding her.

‘Any news?’ Symes asked, joining them at the rail.

Mira shrugged. ‘They were parked on the top deck over there, but the storm was closing in so they stayed in the matron’s car with the windows up.’

Darkin slumped noisily into one of five ghostly sofas made of some kind of durable, all-weather leather-like material. ‘So who’s pointing the way?’ he asked.

‘Get to the helm,’ Moser said. ‘We’ll let you know.’

‘I am at the helm, pal. Check this.’ He tapped something that sounded like the leather arm of his chair; also reminiscent of her father’s old recliner in front of the television. ‘Baby’s rigged so I can play her like a fiddle from any deck.’

‘Slick throne,’ Moser conceded. ‘You’ve got hidden panels for everything.’

‘Mate,’ Darkin said with a chuckle, ‘you have no idea.’

Mira pointed to the end of the neighbouring pier. ‘That way,’ she said, impatiently. Understandably so, Lockman thought, since the faster she went, the less
she’d need to rewind time for any details she’d missed. And the less pain she’d suffer.

‘What’s this now?’ Darkin complained. ‘Is she blind, or isn’t she?’

‘I’m not as blind as they implied, Mr Darkin. That way, please, as fast as you can.’

‘Well, okay.’ He grinned mischievously. ‘Just remember … you asked for it.’

‘E
xcuse me, Colonel.’ Commander Kurst knocked and entered his own cabin, casting only a sideways glance at the unconscious old man on the bunk. Such a strange creature, this Freddie Leopard. His only spots seemed to be moles and freckles, and yet his nature changed every time he awakened. A chameleon in more ways than one, perhaps?

Kitching glanced up from his laptop, where the window for the live feed on Mira Chambers had been blank since they’d lost her on the freeway. At their current depth, it remained too risky to receive that form of data stream for long anyway, due to the signal strength required to project it down through all the thermal layers of salt water. So in the meantime, the Colonel had been reviewing the latest inventory of weapons they’d sold to Indian and Pakistani rebels — the best and most advanced of which they’d been stockpiling for their own pet project.

‘Da, Kirill, my old comrade,’ chuckled the Colonel. ‘What troubles you now?’

‘Sir, this just came in.’ He handed over a coded communiqué from their mole within Garland’s primary surveillance unit. Dot points only.

Target reacquired at marina.

Headed your way with Alpha Lima and two feds.

Symes and Moser.

A long string of coordinates also tracked their course and speed over the past fifteen minutes.

Kitching screwed up the note angrily and pitched it at the waste basket. ‘Two feds?’ he shouted and kicked the bunk. ‘How did you not hear about that, brother?’

No response.

Freddie’s body remained twisted up in the same awkward position that should have made sleep impossible, except in exhaustion or death.

‘Fetch your cane, Commander. It’s time we enforced a little discipline.’

Kurst nodded and spun on his heel, knowing the most effective way to punish the male was to use the female, and a gleam came to his eye as he pictured the little woman upside down again, begging for mercy. Perhaps, this time, a little naked.

Mira gripped the rail, expecting trouble. Something in Darkin’s voice warned her to expect almost anything.

Engines rumbled to life, and the
Limo
reared up and lurched forward, throwing her back a step into Lockman. He caught her, and Symes tried too, but he missed and slipped off his feet, needing Lockman to help him as well.

‘Cut that out!’ she screamed. ‘This is serious!’

Behind them, Darkin chuckled. ‘How slick is my baby now, Detective?’

‘As soon as I find my stomach, I’ll throttle you!’ Moser shouted from somewhere further astern. Mira wished she could see him, since he must have fallen back a few metres further than the rest of them and from the sounds of his scrambling, he’d wedged against something that made it harder for him to get up.

Darkin swept the long vessel around the end of the pier with surprising agility, just as the ghostly
Sea Snake
sailed past for the bay.

‘Man, I always wanted to do that,’ Darkin said. ‘Speed limits take all the fun out of boating.’

‘You’re not authorised to break the law,’ Symes called back over his shoulder.

‘Hey, she said
fast.
She got fast,’ Darkin said defensively.

‘Stop!’ Mira shouted as she began to levitate through the bow of the cargo ship in a ghostly head-on collision. ‘Dead stop now!’

Engines wailed as they thrust into reverse, while momentum carried her forward a little further than she’d expected. She sailed through the front wall of the wheelhouse and came face to face with the yester-ghost of its skipper, who was talking again, or still, as if to nobody.

Sorry, Colonel. I didn’t notice any papers on him, but I’ll have a couple of my lads double check before we take care of them … Nah, they don’t suspect a thing yet. She even paid me all the cash she had on her as a boarding fee. I’ll come about on your port bow and drop ’em over to starboard so they don’t hit you on the way down.

Mira’s head spun and she lost all strength in her legs.

Lockman swept her up and carried her to a soft, but now invisible, sofa. The all-weather material felt rougher than she’d expected, and cooler, like plasticised canvas, and yet those thoughts came to her from far away, as if her mind and body had parted company. Still it seemed to Mira as if she was hovering high over water with nothing at all to support her, and the moment Lockman let go of her, the deck heaved and she panicked, latching onto him to stop herself from falling.

‘Most women travel better with their feet up,’ Darkin said too suavely. ‘Except I never picked her for such a princess.’

‘I’m not a princess!’ Mira clamped her eyes shut, fighting the sharper pain that always came with trying to see through the extra distortion of salty tears. ‘I just learned what happened to my friend!’ She tugged on Lockman’s sleeve to bring his ear down closer to her. ‘She drowned,’ she explained, but heard shuffling, suggesting the others had crouched around her too. ‘The Colonel ordered her car to be pushed overboard. Out there somewhere.’

‘We need to know where.’ Symes patted her hand lightly, as if that might somehow comfort her when his own hand was so sweaty. ‘Can you show us?’

Mira shuddered. ‘I came to save her, not watch her die!’

‘If you haven’t seen it happen yet, there’s still a chance —’

‘One little matron against a dozen burly crewman? What hope did she have?’

‘Maybe,’ Lockman said. ‘But I’m with Symes on this. If there’s the slightest chance she may still be alive, we can’t give up yet. And I’m shocked you’d suggest it.’

‘I’m not giving up! I’m just … wishing I could be wrong for once.’ She splayed her hands against his chest.
Work with me,
she pleaded.
I think eyes may be on us again.
‘Of course, I’ll keep going! But I need to insist on one thing from all of you.’

‘Name it,’ Symes said. ‘Anything.’

‘Silence. Absolute and unquestioned. No interruptions or distractions. Don’t even discuss me amongst yourselves. Just sit back and enjoy the cruise as best you can, and I’ll tell you everything just as soon as I’m finished.’

Lockman shifted his arm as if to sit back from her too, but she grabbed him before he could move too far
away. ‘Not you, Lieutenant. I hate to admit it, but I fear falling even more than I fear you.’

‘You need it, you got it,’ he said, and gave her just the right amount of help to find her feet on the invisible deck.

‘That way, please, Mr Darkin.’ She pointed northeast, aiming to get wider abreast of them while they headed due north. ‘As fast as the speed limit permits.’

Fredarick huddled on the colonel’s bunk, conscious again. Sobbing, he kept his legs tucked up while hugging himself inside his straitjacket. The air smelled dirty and greasy. Too long submerged, and no lemon antiseptic to hide the smell of blood as there always had been at Serenity. The white leather coat he wore now felt too luxurious. Too soft and warm, and the gold buckles had no harsh corners. Far too good for him. Necessary though, to keep his prankster alter-ego Freddie in check aboard the submarine.

He heard the echoes of distant screaming cease finally. His poor angel. He howled in anguish at her pain. Nothing could hurt him more than hearing her cry. He punished his head against the cold metal wall again and again; icy but not cruel enough against the busted skin of his forehead. Freddie’s curly blond wig softened the blows too much, not allowing him to beat himself as hard as he deserved. He hadn’t drawn enough fresh blood yet today, aside from opening up yesterday’s injuries.

Pipes and machinery running lengthwise inside the hull of the
Black Eel
had kept the bulkhead warm, and sometimes hot to the touch, during the first three days aboard, enabling him to scald his cheek as well as the back of his bald head, but his brother’s ex-Russian Delta III K-433 had been sitting below the isothermal layers of the Cato Trough for the better part of two
days; long enough for the icy temperatures to creep inside the hull of the
Black Eel
. Surprising how cold the water could be in the subtropics off the East Coast of Australia, but at 3000 metres, far below the more famous warmer flow of
Nemo’s
East Australian Current, the great veins of the Pacific flowed in the opposite direction, directly up from Antarctica.

Air inside the
Eel
began to chill, bringing a little relief from the oily stench and stuffiness. Amazing how much a skeleton crew of thirteen men could sweat in cramped quarters. For once, he could empathise with Mira Chambers and her grim obsession for a breeze — back in the safe days, when she was locked away in her windowless cell.

Silence comforted him rarely, and yet blissful silence visited him for a heartbeat.

As close to utter silence as he’d ever experienced. Too indulgent of him to enjoy it now, when he least deserved it, but he could hardly help himself. The sub moved on, navigating the current cautiously into noisier waters.

Noisier for him.

A pod of whales would pass overhead soon. He could already hear their songs rippling softer as their echoes trickled backwards over the threshold from future to present, steadily flattening from a cacophony of sound waves from every alternative tomorrow, into one long, flat pond of silence — sabotaged only by the upcoming fracas and the stampede of crewmen tiptoeing about in the passage, all in socks or bare feet, at his brother’s insistence — as the sub came to rest again.

Minus all the echoes from alternative futures, which were always louder, he counted only four crewmen who’d passed the door since he’d woken. All small men and light-footed, like their Commander Kurst whose Asian features seemed so at odds with his Russian accent.

He didn’t count the much smaller feet of the boy child. Barely higher than Freddie’s knee. His brother’s great-grandson. He appeared for his daily visit, standing in the doorway, sucking on the ear of his furry rabbit and swiping his snotty nose with a fist that made his whole face look like a glazed donut.

Miserable little lad didn’t speak much English. Didn’t speak much of his own language either, but he didn’t need to. They shared a blood bond and a language far above normal sound waves.

‘Serennniteeeeeeeeeee,’ Freddie sang, over and over to all the ad jingles that would ever be written to boast it as the health sanctuary and holiday destination for anyone with a severe handicap. ‘Serenity is the place for me …’

He hoped that one day, when the boy grew old enough to learn that he needed special help with his hearing, he’d recall one of the jingles, and his life would be saved by seeking out the only place in the world that would know — by then — how to treat him. In the meantime, the boy’s parents only believed him to be hard-of-hearing, and in most of the futures that followed, Mira would go on believing that she was alone in the world as a gifted babe.

Another thought occurred to him; another possibility for an alternative future. How much safer would his beloved Matron be, if all three misfits were struck from existence completely? Bad blood turned to dust?

He smiled at the boy, and beckoned him nearer with silent hands.
Want to see heaven?
he asked, using standard international sign language.

The boy screamed and ran off, and for every squeal and footfall, a crowd of others became possible, all calling to them both from the future — the less likely, the louder, which made the one true future so much softer and harder to hear amidst all the others. Far
worse on land than here, especially now that his own wailing had subsided to sobbing. Freddie wondered if that also explained why the small boy seemed so attracted to him.

In the bowels of the ocean, where the noisiest futures were all made by fish and the coming argument, he could hear the one true future far more clearly than ever. No need for the silent throb of his music stick to quicken his pulse. No need for a beat that could drown out the scream of all the other voices like opposite waves cancelling each other. The screams of men, yet to enter, would become his orchestra and choir.

Ordinarily, the crew of the
Black Eel
were adept at working and communicating without a sound anyway. Running silent, they called it; perhaps their only redeeming skill. At least as far as Freddie cared.

Further away, he heard the creak of a bulkhead ripple over the soft end of the sound barrier — a single crack that reverberated like a machine gun; a starter’s gun.

The time was upon him.

His angel’s voice came to him from the hall, muffled by a gag as two crewmen dragged her nearer, and tears welled in his eyes. He already knew what they’d done to her. He heard the door open, minutes before it did, and saw her struggling as they brought her in with her hands and ankles bound so tightly that her precious porcelain skin had pinched white and red either side of the nylon bindings. Holding her shorter left arm close against her chest and without the tall shoe that corrected her shortened right leg, Maddy Sanchez looked like a sad, twisted doll as the two men bound her to the chair with another rope around her neck and stomach.

Freddie cast his eyes down, unable to meet her pretty face, and saw red welts on her sweet little toes; and her heels so puffy and sore from the caning that she couldn’t put any weight on them, even at rest,
as they tied her down. He’d never felt older, or more useless, and as he cried out in anguish, a great rage swelled up from within him and burst out as Red, the hunter-warrior. He shook off his wig and strained to break free of the jacket — until the taller of her two assailants looked at him, smiled with a toothless grin and then wilfully licked a long slobbering tongue over Maddy’s cheek, making her flinch.

Fighting his straitjacket, Red growled, roared and launched himself headlong into the gut of the toothless torturer, taking down the second crewman in the fall and knocking Maddy sideways in her chair, putting her out of the way as best he could manage for the struggle which followed. He thrashed about like a beached shark, gnashing at any bare flesh that came within reach. Another two crewmen hurried into the tight room to intervene and lift him free of them, and he latched onto a cheek that tore off in his mouth as they ripped him away from their fallen shipmate.