Quick (6 page)

Claude recoils. ‘Oh man, this guy is insane.’

The German nods. ‘He used to be a professional racing car driver. In fact, he was, from what I can remember, a bit of a prospect. Had managers looking to bring him over to race in Europe. Even my friend was interested. Then this happened and he fell off the map. I think he was quite badly injured.’

Marcellus works the keyboard again. This time he accesses the internal Interpol database. It takes a moment, then Billy’s file flips up onto the screen. Marcellus skim-reads it aloud: ‘He was accepted into the Victorian Police Academy, fourth in his class, one of the youngest detectives, yada yada, has been reprimanded on numerous occasions for, well, you just saw it, “reckless endangerment” and—oh.’

‘What?’

‘It seems like—yeah, he just resigned. Or was forced to. Looks like that chase was the last straw.’ Marcellus turns and stares out the window, lost in thought once more. ‘Interesting.’

Claude studies his boss warily. ‘What are you up to, old man?’

‘I’ve had an idea.’

‘How nice for you. I know how rarely that happens these days.’

Marcellus ignores the comment and turns to the Frenchman. ‘It’s time, Claude.’

‘Time for what?’

‘I think you know.’

‘If I did I wouldn’t have asked.’

‘You need to get back on the horse.’

‘The horse is dead.’

‘I just bought you a new one.’

‘But I don’t want it.’

‘Tough, it’s already in the stable —’

‘Omigod! Enough with the equine metaphors. It’s not going to happen —’

‘I’m retiring in two months —’

‘What?’

‘And I want you to take over as head of this department.’

‘Really? You want—really?’ Claude is both shocked and delighted by this news.

Marcellus nods. ‘You’re imminently qualified
and
the only one I trust in this viper pit.
But
it’s not my call. The director will seriously consider who I recommend but I know he wants to hire someone with recent operational experience and you —’

‘— haven’t been in the field for five years.’

‘Yep. Since, well, you know.
But,
if you work a high-profile case, like this one, solve it, that will seal the deal.’

The Frenchman takes this in, then shakes his head. ‘I’ve been driving a desk for a long time. I’m too rusty for field work.’

‘It’ll come back to you just like that.’ Marcellus clicks his fingers.

‘I’m not so sure.’

‘It will.’ Marcellus takes a moment. ‘Don’t you miss it?’

‘No.’

‘Christ, I do. Every day.’ The German looks out the window again, a little wistfully this time.

‘I don’t miss being dead.’ Claude turns and nods at the iMac. ‘So what does this have to do with the Australian?’

‘We need to get proactive with this crew—we really should give them a name by the way—before somebody gets hurt. Just waiting for them to screw up isn’t going to cut it. So I want someone on the inside and this guy fits the bill.’ Marcellus turns and studies the computer screen. ‘He has the right background and there doesn’t seem to be anything about his career as a police officer online, though I’ll get the boffins in the lab to scrub anything that might show up.’

‘How do you even know that he’ll be suitable?’

‘I have a gut feeling.’

‘Really? A gut feeling?’

‘Just like the one I had when I hired you.’

‘Point taken.’

‘We’ll get him in for a formal interview to be sure. But before that you need to agree to be his partner.’

Claude studies his German boss for a long moment. Going back into the field. Is it really something he wants to do? There’s a much higher chance of dying in the field than there is sitting behind a mahogany desk, and as dying is something he’s already experienced he’s not keen on a repeat performance. Of course he lied when he told the old man he didn’t miss being in the field. He does. A great deal. He misses the hunt, misses tracking and smoking out criminals. He has yet to find anything else that’s quite as satisfying, but is that a good enough reason to override his sense of self-preservation? He shakes his head. ‘No. I’m not doing it.’

Marcellus stares at him for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, I mustn’t have been clear: it wasn’t a request.’

‘Sounded like one to me.’

‘Actually, you’re right, it did, but then you said “no” so now it’s an order.’

Claude is stunned. ‘Is this—are you joking?’

Marcellus shakes his head. ‘You’ll thank me eventually. Now, if I can have the room, I need to see if I can organise the other part of this investigation.’ Marcellus picks up the phone and dials.

The Frenchman turns and walks out, takes a seat at his desk. He’s extremely annoyed at the old German. But, he realises, he’s also a little excited at the prospect of getting back on the horse.

~ * ~

Marcellus knows his old friend Dieter Wolfe is always looking for a new marketing angle. After all, marketing drives his business. When you make highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water for a living, and sell over two billion cans of it every year, you don’t spend much on research and development. It’s just highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water after all. There’s nothing to research and develop, and you certainly don’t screw with the formula. (New Coke anyone?) So what do you do with all that profit? You build the brand so you can sell three billion cans next year. And how do you build the brand? You market it to young men who drink more highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water than any other demographic. And how do you market it to young men? Well that’s easy. Ever since young men were young Neanderthals living in caves trying to impress the young lady Neanderthals by beating up the gang of uppity monkeys who kept turning up at the waterhole uninvited, they’ve wanted to be just one thing: cool.

So how do you make a drink ‘cool’? One highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water is not inherently cooler than another highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water, it’s no cooler than lemonade or cola or even freshly squeezed orange juice, or, heaven forbid, plain old tap water, but if you market it just right, you can make it the very height of cool. So what does that entail? You plaster its name on the kinds of sport young men aspire to be involved with that feature ‘xtreme’ speed and danger: snowboarding and surfing and motorcross and mountain biking and aeroplane racing and skydiving from the edge of space, and the grand-daddy of them all: Formula One. The pinnacle of motorsport, the most watched televised sporting event on the planet after the football World Cup and the Olympics.

Now Dieter’s highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water is named Iron Rhino and the company spends three hundred million dollars a year on Formula One. Three hundred
million.
A year. But still, they’re always searching for that next marketing opportunity, that special something that will make it even cooler to drink their highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water instead of the competition (which is named Red Bull and outsells Iron Rhino three to one).

Dieter, who founded and runs Iron Rhino, and who Marcellus has known since they served on the board of a rare disease charity back in 2001, has recently branched out beyond the company’s usual extreme-sport marketing habitat into other areas, such as DJ battles and a music label, so what Marcellus has in mind just may work for him.

The phone rings and rings, then is picked up. ‘Dieter?’

‘Marcellus, my good man.’ The delight in his voice is obvious. ‘How are you?’ They both speak German.

‘Fine, fine. And you? The family, everybody well?’

‘No complaints.’

‘I should damn well hope not.’ They share a knowing laugh. Dieter’s fortune is estimated at over one billion dollars and he is well known to be generous with family and friends.

‘And how’s that racing team of yours coming along?’

‘Slowly, which is not a word you want to hear in F1.’ The sixty-four-year-old German sounds pained saying it. After seven years in Formula One, Dieter’s Iron Rhino team has not yet won a race and is being handed its arse by Red Bull, which is not only its fierce competitor in the energy drink market but also on the track. Red Bull has won the F1 championship for the last four years running.

‘Sorry to hear that.’

‘Me too. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?’

‘I’ve had an idea you may find interesting. Do you have a minute?’

‘For you I have two.’

~ * ~

Six minutes later Marcellus hangs up the phone and grins. That went exactly as hoped. Now all he has to do is make sure Billy Hotchkiss isn’t a crazy person and Marcellus can set this investigation in motion. He glances at the computer screen, finds the Australian’s mobile number and dials the phone.

~ * ~

McDonald’s.

Yep, whenever Billy’s feeling down in the dumps good old Micky D’s comes to the rescue. It’s always there, just over the hill or around the bend, the gleaming golden arches promising to soothe whatever ails him, in this case the shame of screwing up his
second
career.

Unfortunately it’s too late for hotcakes, the breakfast menu is no longer being served, but he hoes into his second Double Choc Fudge McFlurry, which is almost as good, and wonders if it would be too much if he went back for a third. Why the hell not? Though he should probably visit a different cashier to avoid any embarrassment.

Bzzz.
His iPhone rattles on the table next to the first McFlurry container. It’s an overseas number. He picks up, expecting yet another robo-call telling him he’s won the chance to win a Caribbean vacation or a Lotus Elise. They’re the only international calls he ever seems to receive. ‘Hello?’

‘Is this Billy Hotchkiss?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hello, this is Marcellus Jaspernik.’

Another bloody sales call, though at least this one isn’t automated.

‘Hello, Marcellus. And who are you when you’re at home?’

‘I don’t—what? I—I run the Criminal Investigation Department at Interpol and I would like to speak to you about a job.’

So it’s not a sales call but a prank from one of his work mates who, by now, have heard about his forced resignation.

‘Yeah yeah, ha ha, rack off mate. I’m not in the mood.’

‘This call isn’t getting off to the best start, Mr Hotchkiss.’

There’s something about the tone of the guy’s voice, or maybe it’s his clipped Euro accent that makes the Australian pause. ‘This a joke, right?’

‘Not at all. I need you on a plane. To France. Tonight. For a formal interview. Are you available?’

‘You’re seriously calling about a job?’

‘I’m certain I’ve already said that.’

‘And the job is with who?’

‘With
whom
, and it is
Interpol.
I’m certain I said that too. Now, are you available?’

Billy’s starting to think this might be for real. ‘If you’re fair dinkum.’

‘Does that mean “yes”?’

‘Bloody oath.’

‘I don’t know what that means either.’

‘It means when does the flight leave?’

~ * ~

Claude presses the button on the vending machine and a bottle drops into the receptacle. He now has to buy his own sparkling water. He remembers a time when there was a fridge full of Diet Coke and Perrier on every floor. Not anymore. Interpol’s budget is tight, barely seventy million euros a year, and they’re always looking for something to cut so complimentary beverages were bound to go. He just hopes they don’t start axing anything important, like support for agents in the field. Maybe if he can win Marcellus’s job he’ll have some meaningful influence over the budget. That’s certainly motivation to take up the old German’s offer. Since Marcellus dropped the bomb yesterday, Claude’s warmed to the idea of being in the field again. He even went for an hour-long run yesterday afternoon then powered through half an hour of calisthenics.

No, the forty-eight-year-old’s fitness is not a concern. What he’s worried about, what kept him awake last night, is whether or not he still has ‘it’, that special something where, in the heat of the moment, his instincts take over and he makes the right call. Those instincts served him well during his years in the French Foreign Legion, then as a gendarme in Paris, then as an investigator with Interpol.

How rusty will they be now?

He turns from the vending machine and glances over a banister at the Interpol headquarters lobby one floor below, all glass and steel and polished marble floors. The place is a hive of activity. He notices a guy with a slight limp move through the crowd of people. Claude doesn’t trust anyone with a limp. It’s like they’re trying to hide something, and doing a terrible job. Worse, the guy is wearing a hoodie. Claude is more than happy to profile him ‘on the fly’ and a limp plus a hoodie immediately throws a red flag. His instincts tell him he needs to check this guy out. He puts the drink down on the banister and descends the wide stairway to the lobby.

The Frenchman circles around like a big cat—not an
overweight
house cat, but a jungle cat—stalking its prey through the undergrowth, which, in this case, is a crowd of people. He feels a tingle in his chest as he remembers how much he loves the hunt. It’s better than wine, or cheese, or his beloved Gitanes, which he’d recently been forced to give up by his doctor, or even women, whether it be Bridgette, his first ex-wife, or his ex-mistress who became his second ex-wife, also named Bridgette.