Leopard Dreaming (36 page)

Garland frowned suspiciously. ‘Divert a small team to double check. Intercept if necessary. I want no nasty surprises today, Airman.’

‘Alpha team’s on their way.’ He pointed to a group of six similar signals adjacent to a nearby creek. ‘You were out on your rounds, so I took the initiative and sent them in by jet ski. They’re landing now.’

The blip flickered and disappeared as if the satellite had moved on, leaving them in a black spot.

Garland clapped him on the shoulder with an encouraging grin. ‘Don’t know what I’d do without you, Mr Lasso. Carry on.’

Six armed men sprang at Lockman from the forest in a wide circle. Two Caucasians and four Asians, all dressed
as fishermen, aside from their MP5 submachine guns. Special issue for plain-clothed soldiers in Garland’s homeland security units, and yet Lockman only recognised the two Caucasians, who normally wore uniforms and carried much longer Steyr assault rifles.

He shielded Mira against the tree, also cornering her against the creek. Bracing himself, he levelled his Glock at the most menacing of them; his former Senior Staff Sergeant, Emmett Patterson.

‘Come out, son, and bring the girl with you.’ Patterson strode out of the scrub with all the diplomacy of a Hercules tank. ‘The colonel prefers it if we take her alive.’

‘Can’t do that, Sarge, but thanks for hoisting your true colours finally.’

‘So how are we gonna do this?’ asked Sergeant Jo Pobody; lapdog as usual at Patterson’s heel. The pair of them brothers-in-law as well as in arms. ‘You want me to plug him in the knee, shoulder or ear?’

‘Stay tight to the tree,’ Lockman whispered to Mira.

‘Pest control will do for now.’ Patterson tapped his comrade’s shoulder while relaxing the aim of his MP5. ‘Check them for bugs, Jo.’

‘That’s close enough!’ Lockman saw the small phallic zapper that Pobody took from his vest pocket, and recognised it as a model that functioned up to a range of twenty metres. ‘You don’t need to frisk her with that. You can satisfy your curiosity from there.’

‘Oh, a pity. Maybe my batteries are low?’ Pobody paused a few steps out of reach and rubbed it down his own stomach with a lewd wink — one that Lockman was glad Mira couldn’t see. ‘Might have to get up real close and personal.’

‘Try it.’ Lockman shifted his aim from Patterson’s head to Pobody’s groin, still very much aware of the full set of MP5s around him. ‘Still tender after your wife talked you into the big snip?’

‘Waste of a good round.’ Patterson patted his chest, inviting Lockman’s aim back to him. ‘His bitch bit him harder next day with divorce papers. Only loaded weapon at his house was her mouth anyway.’

‘Ain’t that the truth.’ Pobody scanned them and returned the device to his pocket. ‘They’re clean. If she had anything on her, she’s ditched it, same as always.’

‘What now?’ Lockman asked. ‘Care to escort us up to the hotel?’

Patterson chuckled. ‘Play fair, son. We went to a lot of trouble to set up that rendezvous. Not very sporting of you to turn it into an ambush of your own. You left us no choice except this.’

‘Does Garland know you’re here?’

Pobody rolled his eyes. ‘That woman couldn’t see sand on a beach. We’ll be halfway to the equator and she’ll still be coding us as her alpha team. How’s that for hilarious?’

‘Liars!’ Mira tried to push past Lockman, but he blocked her in time. ‘If they were really Garland’s alpha team,’ she argued, ‘they’d be staked out at the hotel and she’d notice them missing in seconds.’

‘She’s got a point,’ Lockman conceded. ‘I thought Brette and Finnigan’s unit were assigned as the alphas today anyway.’

‘Try delta. They’re in the stew for playing ball too nicely with you. So here’s the maths, son. You’re looking at an “if-then-else” kind of deal. Know what I mean?’

‘Yeah, I get it. If I don’t hand her over, then you kill me and take her anyway.’

‘Or else take a fall,’ Pobody goaded him. ‘Not a pleasant way to end your day.’

Lockman calculated how many of them he might be able to take down on his way to the ground, assuming their skills were at least as good as Patterson’s. Two, maybe three, depending on how badly they needed to
avoid hitting Mira, plus another one or two depending on how bad his injuries from their first replies might be. Worth trying, even though the maths left at least one of them standing. One too many to guarantee keeping her safe, and yet promising enough to increase her odds of getting away if he could also wing the survivors.

Pobody tightened his aim on Lockman’s chest, as if he’d already made his own assessment. ‘Listen up, lad. Her eyes and those trick shades are all we really need in a pinch. Anything technological can be reverse engineered.’

‘If you still think that, you’re idiots,’ Lockman argued. ‘She’s not technological. She’s biological. You need her brain alive, healthy and cooperative to receive, process and interpret all the images she can access. Otherwise, all you’ll have is a couple of lenses. Like mini TV screens, but without all the wiring and programs.’

‘Sounds like you’ve put some thought into it yourself,’ Patterson replied smugly. ‘Which suggests you need her alive for something too, and that simplifies the equation for all of us, because it means you’ll hand her over quietly and try to follow us at a safer distance. How’s that sound? Am I close?’

‘Nailed him,’ Pobody said. ‘It’s his standard MO. So she comes with us voluntarily, and you can either walk out of here after we leave, or get taken out in a body bag — assuming there’s no dingoes around to pick at your body before anyone finds you.’

‘Only don’t take too long deciding, son, or we’ll also have to deal with a little lady in a bug shirt when she jogs back this way.’

‘Enough!’ Mira pleaded. ‘I’ll go with you.’ She tried to squirm out from behind Lockman, until he caught her tighter around the waist with one arm, while struggling to keep his Glock outstretched and levelled
at Patterson. She wriggled wildly at first, but he kept his feet planted.

‘She stays with me until we meet Kitching and retrieve Matron Sanchez. That was the deal for the hotel room, so that’s the only deal you’ll get here.’

‘Argh!’ Patterson wrenched off his own sunshades. ‘You’re as bull-headed as that crazy blind bitch.’ He jerked up his MP5 and spat lead over Lockman’s head. Warning shots, but he ducked in reflex anyway, tugging Mira down with him.

The brief burst of rapid fire exploded bark from the trunk above their heads.

Shifting her weight unexpectedly, Mira drove her elbow into Lockman’s stomach, knocking the wind from him just as he’d taught her. He countered her next move automatically, but she blocked him with a back-fist, and flipped him over her shoulder — using an advanced twist that he’d encountered only during training with Tarin. Totally unexpected from Mira. He landed heavily on his back, with only the contents of his backpack propping him up enough to prevent his head from slamming the ground.

‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘You can’t help me if you’re dead.’

‘Mira, no! Don’t do this. I need to stay with you.’

Her expression seemed pained, but she twisted out of his grip, raising her hands. ‘I give up. Don’t get any of his blood on my dress.’

Pobody laughed. ‘She’d get on well with my ex.’

Lockman made a move to get up — until the quartet of spectators tightened their aims on him. He heard the familiar click-click of their cycling mechanisms; a set of triggers that also caused Mira to lunge back to him.

‘Stop!’ she shouted, crouching to shield him again. ‘I don’t want his death on my conscience either. He needs to get my wallaby into the hands of a friend, and that
means he gets to walk away. Or else I let him up and you get to see how fast on the draw he can be.’

‘Mira, stand clear,’ he pleaded. ‘We’ve had our differences, but we can work together on this.’

‘Why? You don’t give a rat’s arse about me or Maddy.’ She splayed her fingers against his chest as if holding him down. ‘You only want Kitching.’
Slip me ur bug
, she typed swiftly in Braille.
Use Garland to track me.

Stunned, it took him a second to react. ‘You want to taste a rat’s arse?’ He grabbed her down by the neck and smacked a deep kiss on her, feigning anger, while wrestling with her fist and sliding his bug into it.

Pobody whistled as Mira’s fight became futile. ‘Get a room. Oh, wait. That’s what got you into this mess.’

‘Trust me,’ he whispered as he shoved her back up abruptly.

With all my heart.
She fumbled to find his face, and then slapped him.

‘Enough fun. Tie him to the tree,’ Patterson ordered, but kept his attention for the most part on Lockman. ‘We’ll arrange for you to be found, son, just as soon as she’s safely in the colonel’s custody. Unless that homely girl in the bug shirt happens back this way in the meantime. You could get lucky.’

‘Or not.’ Pobody withdrew a small switchblade and a fist full of cable ties from his utility fishing vest. ‘Let’s see if we can’t slow you down without complicating this mess with a murder charge.’

‘If you’re not prepared to shoot, why all the guns?’ Mira argued. ‘And how can I believe who you’re really working for, when some days it’s Kitching and others it’s Garland?’

‘You don’t need to believe us,’ Patterson replied smugly. ‘You only need to keep us happy. Our boy there is a loose cannon, but he’s not on our kill sheet today, or he’d be dead already.’

‘Like when we shot up your truck this morning.’ Pobody chuckled, his eyes wandering from Lockman to Mira and back again.

‘
You
did that?’ She turned back to Lockman and punished him with another slap. ‘You told me you didn’t recognise them?’ She looked genuinely stung.

‘Their windows were filthy,’ he said, attempting to buy time and use peripheral vision to keep a line of sight on the other four. ‘And it was only a two seater. Ironic too, because it means Garland sent them to arrest themselves.’

‘So where’s our truck?’ Mira demanded as she rounded on them, ‘and all our gear?’

‘No need to worry your pretty head over that,’ Patterson said. ‘You’ll see it again.’

‘You bet I will!’ Mira grabbed Lockman’s hand and wrenched his Glock up to her chin. She tried to slip her finger behind the trigger to prevent herself from firing it by accident, but he beat her to it, ensuring no chance of an accident. Shocked him that she’d even try it.

‘Hey, whoa!’ Patterson panicked. ‘No need to go crazier!’

‘New deal,’ Mira demanded. ‘I’ll go with you if you send the rest of your team away first.’

Patterson clicked his fingers twice, and his quartet of supporters backed up a few steps, widening their circle.

‘Not far enough,’ she warned. ‘I’m blind, not deaf.’

‘But totally see-through,’ Patterson argued. ‘You’re only trying to even the odds.’

‘Can you see my wallaby?’ She pointed her finger around their circle, making Lockman wonder how many of them she could sense. ‘No, because this bastard lieutenant of yours let her go. She can’t survive on her own yet, and if he can’t track her and get her to safety, I may just kill him myself.’

‘If I send them away first, how do you expect
us
to leave? Walk or swim? It’s not like we drove here.’

‘Quit bullshitting, Sarge,’ Lockman argued. If Garland hasn’t noticed you missing yet, then you came in by boat. Something fast, I’m betting.’

‘Then don’t take up gambling.’ Patterson clicked his fingers twice more, and the Asian quartet retreated to the creek, where they uncovered the boat he’d seen earlier outside Poacher’s Cove.

One of them spoke in a hybrid language that Lockman had never heard before, so aside from a few words in English, and some Indonesian Bahasa, he missed most of it — until he caught one phrase that rung out from the rest like a French bell.

The
Seaview Play
.

Craning his neck, he saw that the shortest of them had found Gabby’s old dinghy under a camouflaged tarpaulin; now pointing to it and laughing.

Something about
chewing gum
and
prayer.

‘Plug it twice anyway,’ Patterson replied. ‘Let’s make sure he can’t use it to follow.’

An MP5 spoke twice, ending the discussion.

The motor of their own boat spluttered to life, blowing bubbles underwater with a throaty growl to match the one he’d seen earlier with the four fake fishermen.

‘Catch any crabs?’ Mira asked, and Lockman noticed her clenching her fists. ‘Your disguises must be pretty good if your own lieutenant didn’t spot you any sooner.’

‘Actually,’ he confessed, ‘I’ve never seen those four before. And that boat was only big enough for them. So who are they, Sarge?’ He glared squarely at Patterson. ‘And how did you two get here?’

‘Whys and wherefores hardly matter. They’re friends,’ Patterson replied. ‘From the territorial disputes in the Okhotsk and South China Seas. Japan versus the triad known as ICKS. You may have heard of them already? IndoChina, Korea and the Soviets. And if not, you soon will.’

‘Before or after the next shipment of weapons?’ Made sense to him either way, but also made him wonder if Garland knew how Kitching fit into that scene. He couldn’t recall anything relevant at any of the security briefings he’d attended. ‘Are you saying Kitching’s been running guns up to the disputed islands?’

‘Someone has to. Japan was strategically weakened by the international financial crisis, long before the big tsunami and nuclear incidents, and the allied nations are hamstrung at taking sides publicly against China. Too many precious trade agreements, and too many neighbouring governments who need resources from all those small isles and atolls. Someone has to have the balls to flood them with friendly deterrents. That certainly won’t be General Garland. And in the meantime, it’s the small communities on those islands who are suffering. Stuck in the dark ages because no government will spend money on infrastructure, when sovereignty has been so ambiguous and changed so often over the centuries. Unless you count secret military outposts, soon to be neutralised.’

‘Garland might surprise you,’ Lockman argued. ‘She covertly supplies Greenpeace with stealth technology for their anti-whaling fleet.’