The Delta Chain (18 page)

‘And you never wanted to end up like that. And you didn’t want to let him down.’

‘I excelled at Uni and when US Defence offered support for special projects in return for serving with them in various capacities, I jumped at the chance.’

‘You’ve achieved a hell of a lot, William, but you’re not satisfied, are you?’

‘I’ve achieved very little.’

‘I think you’re scared that the Mr. Nice Guy in you is fighting to get out.’

‘I’m making certain he stays locked inside,’ William revealed. ‘He’s no help out here in the real world, no help when you’re reaching out to accomplish a major scientific breakthrough.’

‘You know, of course, that I read up on you before I came to town.’

‘Of course.’

‘And I see you served in Vietnam. You don’t speak much of that.’

‘Another era, another country, but it might just as well have been another planet.’

‘I’ve known some men who served there. One of them said he felt like an alien in those jungles.’

‘You didn’t just feel like an alien, you became one. Sanity and insanity merged over there so that you couldn’t tell one from the other. For a while you became someone completely different.’

‘What happened over there?’

‘I met some very strange and interesting people,’ Westmeyer said.

This time he took Meredith back to his house and to his full expectations she’d responded hungrily to his advances.

Since his arrival in Australia, Westmeyer had developed a genuine love of the Queensland coastline, beautiful everywhere, breathtaking in parts. He was making the most of their second day out on the cruiser. Meredith had to fly out the next morning, and he would then need to devote his full energy once more to the Institute.

It was late afternoon, and a breath of balmy breeze wafted through his bedroom window. He’d showered in his ensuite, shaved, dressed and had stopped for a brief, reflective moment. On the dresser, against the room’s west wall, stood the framed photograph of Hoang Thi Mai. How many private moments had there been, gazing at her picture, at the soft, soulful eyes, her warm, unaffected smile, the gentle crease that crossed the tops of her cheeks? The photo was the one and only item to survive, in his possession, during the long trek that had seen him exit a war-torn Saigon decades before.

He heard the front door buzzer and went down to the ground floor to open it. An unsmiling, agitated Sandy Bingham walked in, not waiting for a welcome. ‘We need to talk.’

‘This isn’t a good time.’

Bingham glared at Westmeyer. ‘You haven’t been returning my calls-’

‘I’ve been out of the office and the house. Needed to recharge the batteries.’

‘Don’t cut me out, William. It’s because of my support you were able to build your centre here-’

‘Calm down. Let me fix you a drink. If we must talk keep your voice down and let’s make it brief.’ Westmeyer nodded toward the stairs. ‘I’m not alone.’

‘Where…?’

‘It’s all right. Upstairs in the main shower.’ They moved further into the entertaining area. Westmeyer pulled the sliding door across, then went to the bar and poured two glasses of scotch.

‘You assured me, there was absolutely no chance of negative publicity affecting the town.’

‘There won’t be.’

‘This blasted floater, no ID, now the police are aware the situation is similar to the one up in Morrissey. Now the media are jumping on the bandwagon.’

‘It’s unfortunate, I admit. Wasn’t meant to happen.’

‘Unfortunate? What if they find others…?’

‘That won’t happen,’ Westmeyer assured him.

‘For Chrissakes, William, Kirby wants to bring in senior investigators from the city…’

‘He’s not homicide, surely he doesn’t have that authority-’

‘He can make the request.’

‘Can’t you make sure the request is declined?’

‘I’m working on it, but that’s three now, with the one down in New South-’

‘Nothing further will come of it,’ Westmeyer repeated the point, disguising his own sense of unease. ‘There’s no trail to follow. Just keep me filled in on what’s happening with the police investigation, and the media.’

Bingham filled him in while they finished their drinks.

After seeing the mayor to the door, Westmeyer fixed himself another scotch and poured a glass of chardonnay for Meredith. He did not suspect she had stepped from the shower just as the doorbell buzzed.

Her curiosity piqued, wondering whether Westmeyer had other women friends, Meredith had draped a towel around herself and tiptoed to the top of the stairs. When Westmeyer had pulled the sliding door across, she’d moved half way down the stairs, the voices from the living room muffled but still audible.

She didn’t know who the other man was but she’d listened, confused and concerned, to every word they’d said.

She’d liked William Westmeyer but now she feared her antenna was all wrong.

There was a much darker side to him. This was a driven man obsessed with achieving some perceived greatness, this was a man who was the complete opposite to the father he’d described.

She felt a wave of disgust as she moved stealthily back up the stairs.

It was the second day of his journey and he had no idea where he was headed or what his destination should be. He only knew he couldn’t bear to be parted from the girl he loved.

Daniel knew he had to find her.

Whatever the future now held, in a world so strange to them, he knew they had to face it together.

He’d been walking for three hours solid that morning. He stopped now and knelt beside the shallow creek. He scooped up handfuls of fresh water and ran it through his hair and over his face. He popped open the bottle of warm spring water and took several long swigs.

Daniel had set off the previous morning, before dawn, with just a backpack carrying basic change of clothes, and food and drink for a few days. He hadn’t taken any of the main roads that led to the large towns. He’d done the opposite to what anyone might have expected. He’d gone into the deep woods that led up and over the mountain range to even more desolate country.

The Keepers wouldn’t expect that.

Now a plan began to take shape in his mind. He would travel deep into the north-east pocket of the ranges, then veer further north. Eventually he’d come out on the fringes of the wilderness that straddled the New South Wales and Queensland border. His pocket compass would help guide him. From there, traversing the back roads, he would head across country and approach the city of Brisbane from the west.

He decided he’d be less conspicuous in the nearest big city, one face among millions. He wondered what that would be like, feeling curiosity and fear in the same instant. Then he could begin the next stage, the stage when he began
his
search.

For Elizabeth.

On the morning after the funeral Kate had seen Adam off from the airport. She’d insisted he return to Northern Rocks and his work there. Her family now needed time alone. Kate wanted to stay on, for a short while, with her parents.

She returned to her parents’ house, now a place of subdued grief. Her mother, who’d been sedated for most of the past few days, was in the upstairs bedroom. Her father was haunting the corridors of the elegant, older-style house, looking for ways to keep occupied. Still forcing back tears. Quietly letting them flow at least once a day.

Kate did not know how she would be able to return to her work, to allow the natural rhythms of everyday life sweep her up once more. She tried to turn her mind to the thoughts that occupied her before that fateful phone call: the virus at the Institute, Rhonda’s diary, the design discrepancy – but she couldn’t focus on any of them. She was no longer certain she cared about any of it.

Instead, the germ of another idea invaded her thoughts and, as the hours passed, it grew and grew until she picked up the phone and called James Reardon.

Reardon was pleased to hear from her. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help, Kate, anything at all, you just ask. Okay? And take as much time as you need. I’ll cover things here at the Institute one way or another.’ Reardon was seated before a bank of PC screens, in a room specially designated for him.

‘Actually, James, I feel strange asking this,’ Kate said, ‘but there
is
something you could do for me.’

‘Name it.’

‘These bastards who killed Greg, they’re the same hunters that rangers had vague reports about previously. That’s what Greg was investigating-’

‘I know you like to get things done, Kate,’ Reardon sensed the kind of request to come, ‘but you can’t do the police’s job for them.’

‘No, but I could help them, introduce them to new systems for locating these killers.’

‘The police already have sophisticated systems of their own. Adam will tell you that.’

‘Yes, but I’m referring to newly developing stuff in experimental stages. And while outer regions up in the Territory have access to national resources, they may not have the knowledge or application skills to use them in a situation like this one.’ Kate was speaking in rapid fire, her voice charged with anxiety.

‘Okay. Calm down. And take three deep breaths for me, okay?’

‘All right.’ Kate followed his instruction.

‘Right. Now tell me what you have in mind.’

‘I want to get hold of something from that colleague of yours, the military contractor whose company develops hardware systems for the military.’

‘You’re talking about Rensens.’

‘Yes.’

‘
Kate, anything to do with defence is strictly out of bounds-’

‘I know, I know. But this is one of their commercial applications. It’s intended for police, for farmers, for the security industry, for the insurance sector. The Landscan III satellite tracker. The last thing I read they’d been successfully running trials on prototypes.’

‘Yep,’ Reardon said. ‘Long range satellite signals linked to a high-end laptop, made economical for general business.’

‘It tracks via a micro sized pin that’s transparent and undetectable,’ Kate said. ‘It can block anti-GPS devices, and it transmits its signal hundreds of thousands of kilometres from anywhere world-wide. …’

‘What’s this about-?’

‘That transmitter can attach to any surface, fired from a purpose-built mini-gun. Get me one of those prototypes, on loan.’

‘Whew! When you ask you sure ask big.’

‘James, if ever I needed help, then this is it.’

‘And you want to make this available to the police and the park rangers up there, instruct them-’

‘Yes. If they can locate the bastards just once, as Greg did, and mark them with a micro transmitter they could follow their movements, hunt them down.’

‘You’ll need more than one.’

‘One will do for starters.’

‘And you’d leave this manhunt to the experts,’ Reardon said with a clear tone of misgiving.

‘Of course, James. I’m not stupid.’

‘No, but sometimes I think you may be the most stubborn and determined woman I’ve ever come across.’

‘If it brings about the capture of these hunters,’ Kate pressed, ‘it will be an incredible selling point for Rensen’s unit.’

‘I don’t believe I’m saying this but let me see what I can do.’

‘Thanks, James. I appreciate it.’ She hung up the phone and, closing her eyes, she mouthed a silent prayer that her request would be met. In her mind’s eye she saw herself as an eight year old – skinny, gap toothed, hair drawn back in a ponytail. As though looking through a time window into the past, she watched as she played hide and seek with her slightly older brother. They’d always been close, and she’d missed him since his transfer to the Territory.

For the first time since the ordeal began, she burst into tears.

The observer watched the approaching death with a morbid curiosity.

The face of the victim was no more than a few metres away from him and on two, brief, eerie moments their eyes locked on one another. In each instance the watcher felt his pulse quicken, the old, familiar sense of excitement exploding deep inside.

The sensation caused a giddiness and to offset it, he sucked in short, sharp mouthfuls of air. Then breathed in and out slowly. That was how he’d been taught him to deal with the sensation in this particular situation.

It felt strange to be so close to this victim but at the same time so…removed.

He need do little at this stage but sit and watch – and wait – and yet he exerted total control over the fate of the one he watched. It occurred to him that he was, in a manner of speaking, an assassin, albeit a passive one. He was part of a team; he was taking orders; he was performing a specific function; and, ultimately, there would be a death.

As the final moment approached, he felt his heart beating faster.

Now the very final minutes – the victim thrashed about wildly, limbs flailing, the face contorted by unimaginable fear. Eyes pleading.

The observer quivered with a spasm of his own. He checked his watch; the timing was extraordinary. And it meant this wasn’t yet the right time for the final moments. Not yet. Not today.

Instead, it was time to effect a reversal.

The Brisbane Chief of Police, Fred Stanton, had the lived-in face and knowing eyes of a career policeman who’d seen it all during his thirty-four years on the Force.

‘You wanted to talk to me about this Mermaid case?’ Stanton said as O’Malley seated himself in the spacious office.

‘Yes. And thanks for seeing me on such short notice, Fred.’

‘Well, I guess it’s true what they say, it’s not what you know…’

Both men laughed. They had known each other for more decades than they cared to admit.