Lethal Sky

by Greg Barron

  Badi, apparition-like, comes through from the rear toilet cubicle, covered with foam and blood. The clothes have been stripped from his body and a high-pitched scream emits from his mouth.

  One arm has been amputated above the elbow. That is not, however, what causes Marika to stare. Badi’s naked chest has two breasts, small and flat, but breasts nonetheless. Between his legs is a half-grown lump — a parody of a male sexual organ.

  ‘My father wanted a son after his heart,’ Badi says. ‘I tried to be strong. To be a king. I failed, because of you.’

  Marika sees Badi al-Zaman al-Hamadhani al-Assadi sheeted with blood and foam, sees his face contorting into a terrible grimace of pain. The corpse-face illusion is a sight that she will remember to the grave.

  The aircraft hits the water. Not nose first as Marika had expected, but tail first. A catastrophic impact. Marika’s eyes are on Bashar al-Assad’s illegitimate child. That one-in-a-million intellect. She watches as the body is smashed as if with the impact of a hammer.

  Badi hits the cabin ceiling like a rag doll, head crushing on impact. Only Marika’s lap belt and iron grip on the arm of her seat prevent her from meeting the same fate. The rear portion of the aircraft is folding in on itself like a concertina, to the sound of rending metal.

  Outside the window the sky has been blotted out by a swell of white spray thrown up by the fuselage ploughing through the water. The nose falls now too, helping to slow the initial force of impact. Marika finally dares to breathe.

  The plane keeps moving for another few seconds, then finally stops, and there is a new sound, the lap of wind chop against the aluminium frame. Marika releases her grip, a cramp-like pain in her forearms from the force she has used to hold on.

  She stands, surveys the ghost ship. Badi’s broken body lies where it fell. Ravaged, and pitiful in death. Marika moves to the emergency exits in the middle of the fuselage. Passes the body of Cassie, the designer dress twisted about her lower body, dyed a colour its designer never intended.

  Marika kicks out the emergency exit panel, and climbs onto the wing. She sees that the tail section has broken away, the plane a ruined thing. She strips off her jacket and boots and closes her eyes, the drone of a rescue aircraft resonating in the air. She feels strangely empty. She has won, but feels no sense of victory. She tilts her head, a strand of hair before her eyes, and views the yellow sun dazzling with sunbeams. A tear rolls down her cheek.

  In the distance she can see a US Coast Guard cutter cleaving through the water towards her, the first of at least a dozen surface ships heading for her position. Choppers fill the sky.

  Marika does not cry often, and does not want an audience. She wishes they would go away and leave her alone.

  Then the boat comes alongside. The men on deck are wearing PAPR masks and first responder suits. Soon there will be decon boats, just like in Sydney, and they will wash her down. But she knows that those toxic spores are now swimming in foam and probably seawater. If the foam contained the blast to such an extent that a man standing next to it survived, the hull will be intact also.

  A voice booms out across the water, a cheerful Brooklyn accent: ‘Are you OK?’

  Marika picks herself up, stands on the glossy white surface of the aircraft. They have won, but right now it feels as if victory has come at the price of her own happiness.

  EIGHTY-THREE

  ATLANTIC OCEAN

  JULY 6, LONDON TIME: 0800

  Marika calls Tom Mossel from a sat phone on the flight home. She wears borrowed US Coast Guard overalls and has a cappuccino on the tray table in front of her.

  ‘You are amazing,’ he says, ‘something very special. I thought we’d lost you there.’

  ‘My parents?’

  ‘All good. The gunmen are in custody, and ASIO are keeping an eye on the house.’

  There is a long silence. Something in her subconscious doesn’t want her to ask the question. ‘And PJ … has he gone?’

  ‘Yes, he’s gone. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Badi,’ she says softly, ‘had the body of a woman.’

  ‘Yes, I saw the analysis on his genes. He had a condition called AIS, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. He was born physically ambiguous. In the West most families would have raised him as a girl — in Arab countries a boy.’

  ‘Why didn’t we notice?’

  ‘The hair on the face — hormones he was taking. They’re doing some more tests on his body at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.’

  ‘The world is a strange place.’

  ‘Yes, it is indeed. How much time do you need?’

  ‘A few days would be nice.’

  ‘Good … we’ll have some time before I’m replaced.’

  ‘You’re leaving?’

  ‘I gave my notice to the PM this morning. I’m tired. Beyond tired. I was hoping you might consider applying for the job.’

  ‘I wouldn’t get it, would I?’

  ‘You won’t if you don’t apply.’

  After the call, catching up on her network, on a borrowed tablet, Marika watches the social media phenomenon that is surging across the world, a powerful allegory from a long-hidden civilisation.

  In an ancient land, wisdom from a millennia old tradition has resulted in a system that works …

  Light and life come to the screen, in crystal clear HD. Marika watches, awed by the brilliance of the production.

  War is cancer.

  Violence is the body turning on itself.

  Too many weapons. If they are made, they will be used.

  We are part of a much greater whole. A living power.

  The clip is now hosted on thousands of sites, from Vimeo to Facebook, Sina Weibo to Tumblr. Strident hashtags across all platforms urge world leaders to examine the democratic process employed by the Zaw, and its possible application to modern government.

  On the last day of her holiday, no longer able to distract herself with cinema, the gym and boutiques, Marika borrows a car and drives along the M3, past Basingstoke, to PJ’s little farm, An Tearmunn. There is a SOLD sign on the padlocked front gate.

  Doing a three-point turn in the driveway she heads back to Vauxhall Cross. Will Grace meets her at the front door. ‘I thought you weren’t coming in until Friday.’

  ‘I just need to check something.’

  With her office door closed Marika taps into the DRFS database and initiates a search for Paisley Johnson in the records there. There is not a single match. Not even a scrap of information to show that he ever existed. She opens an internet browser and tries again. One hit, in the Colchester Examiner: ‘JOHNSON, Paisley Ian, service to be held at …’

  Back in her car, she drives to Essex. She pulls up outside one of those stone country churches that grace calendars and postcards, then walks into the most recent section of the cemetery.

  The tombstone is plain white marble, a spray of daisies carefully arranged across the base. PJ liked daisies. Flowers that don’t call attention to themselves, he used to say.

  The epitaph says:

  PAISLEY IAN JOHNSON … HE SERVED.

  The date of his death is six days previous. Marika takes a tissue from her bag and wipes her eyes.

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  LONDON

  Nine, ten days pass. Marika is back at work. A sense of progress pervades the intelligence community. A young Australian scientist is campaigning for the worldwide destruction of all stocks of lethal pathogens. One of several big transgressors — the United States — whose own anthrax stocks have already, once or twice, been used against them, describe the initiative as ‘unworkable’. A meeting of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Biological Weapons is slated for September.

  In England, raking over the wreckage of EMK Corporation leads to multiple arrests. The last ringleaders of the Crusader attacks are rounded up and charged. The streets that saw the worst violence in five hundred years slowly return to normal.

  These are busy days, satisfying days, and long day
s, with little time to think or to dream. Two agents are despatched to the Bahamas. A man who calls himself the Magician is removed from the arms of a beautiful, expensive escort and renditioned back to London.

  One night into the third week, Marika is asleep when she hears the click of her locked front door. The shadow of a man appears in the doorway of her room. She can see him in the light shining through the windows from the square. His head has been shaved, and he smells of the sea.

  ‘I had to come back and say goodbye.’

  ‘How long have you got?’

  ‘An hour, maybe less.’

  Marika throws back the covers and watches PJ take off his shirt and trousers. She moves across to make room for him. Hungrily, she takes him in her arms. His body is hard, warm and strong. Her hands run along the muscles of his back to the rough stubble of his head and face.

  PJ turns his head so their lips meet, and kisses her gently. Her mouth opens under the pressure. Their lips melt together. Nothing matters, only to become as close as is possible. To give and receive pleasure. He rolls his weight over her. His heaviness is what she needs. She understands that this is all he can give her, and all she can give in return.

  Marika feels their eyes connect. They strive frantically together, building to a peak, her body shuddering with pleasure. Shocks and aftershocks, warm and wet and more intense than she could ever have imagined. He collapses against her, his breath in her ear, her fingers climbing the hard nubs of his vertebrae.

  Marika rolls onto her side, still clutching him, covering his cheeks, his lips, his nose, his eyes in tiny kisses. ‘Thank you for coming back to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he chokes out. ‘If we were normal people, I’d just love you and love you, and I wouldn’t care one bit as long as we were together.’

  She holds him tighter, pulling his head against her breasts. ‘And I’d love you back, Paisley Johnson, for every minute and every hour.’

  ‘We’d have kids running round, and …’

  ‘… every morning at eight-thirty we’d drop the kids at school and go to office jobs where no one gets killed. We’d go on holidays every winter, and we’d get old and wrinkled together … I’m going to miss you.’

  ‘Please keep safe.’

  ‘You too.’

  ‘I can’t come back again.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Nothing is forever. Nothing can be.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks, once more, to all the family, colleagues and friends who are making my writing career such a wonderful experience. My exhaustive list ran to over a page in Savage Tide, so this year I’m just going to repeat those thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you.

  Special thanks for the production of Lethal Sky go to Jo Jarrah for challenging me to aim higher, and, as always, Anna Valdinger. A special thank you to Kathy Hassett, for caring so much about the book. Thanks to Matt Stanton for his incredible design skills, and Jane Finemore for working hard to publicise my books. There are so many other staff at HarperCollins who work behind the scenes I won’t try to mention you all, just be sure that I appreciate what you do. Thanks to my agent, Brian Cook. Your efforts on my behalf will never be forgotten.

  Numerous friends and contacts helped me out with research in their areas of expertise. They include Chris Morgan, Shannon Ward, Mary Poynten, David Andresen, Mark Shepherd, Michelle Garrett, John Carroll, Michael Garrett, and former Special Forces operative, call sign: ‘BlackSheep’. A very special thanks to Kelly McGrath for her help with microbiology. Kelly took valuable time away from her job as a lecturer and her own writing to make suggestions and explain scientific concepts. She read certain sections several times, followed by the entire manuscript. Thanks so much. I also appreciate @HelzBellz77, @traceyb65 and many other twitter helpers, Fergus Macks with his excellent: ‘Where others can not, When others will not.’ Thanks to the guys at Military Photography for helping with the slogan competition.

  Thanks to my wife, Catriona, and my sons Daly and James, for supporting me and acting as sounding boards. Thanks to my proofreaders, Lisa Hall, and my much loved parents, Bob and Faye Barron. Thanks to my always astute early reader Mark Shepherd. Finally, heartfelt thanks to everyone who reads my books. You are the ones who make it happen.

  ROTTEN GODS

  by Greg Barron

  It took seven days to create the world … now they have seven days to save it

  Extremists hijack the conference centre where heads of state have gathered in an attempt to bring society back from the brink of global catastrophe, and the clock starts ticking: seven days until certain death for presidents and prime ministers alike, unless the terrorists’ radical demands are met.

  Marika, an Australian intelligence officer, Isabella, a treasonous British diplomat, Simon, an airline pilot searching for his missing daughters, and Madoowbe, a mysterious Somali agent, are all forced to examine their motives, faith and beliefs as they attempt to stave off disaster, hurtling towards the deadline and a shattering climax.

  Rotten Gods is both an imaginative tour de force and a dire warning, holding the reader spellbound until the last breathtaking page.

  ‘A superlative political thriller’

  Rob Minshull, ABC

  ‘Barron has written a thriller that entertains but also for those wanting more, a thought-provoking polemic’

  Daily Telegraph

  Click here to buy Rotten Gods

  EXCERPT FROM SAVAGE TIDE

  by Greg Barron

  ‘The Hourglass brings death wherever he goes. That is his business. He leaves a trail of corpses …’

  Marika Hartmann, an intelligence officer for a shadowy subdivision of MI6, captures an extremist foot-soldier guilty of a massacre of school children and aid workers in Southern Somalia. Renditioned to a CIA ‘black site’ in Djibouti, the prisoner hints at a devastating terror plot in the making, led by a ruthless doctor known as The Hourglass.

  Marika and her ex-Special Forces colleague PJ Johnson team up to investigate, uncovering a cold-blooded conspiracy to decimate the cities of the West. But the enemy is always one step ahead — is there a traitor at the very heart of MI6?

  From the refugee camps of East Africa to the azure waters off the Iranian coast, the marshes of Iraq to Syria’s parched eastern desert, Savage Tide is a manhunt, a quest for truth, and a desperate search for the legacy of a cruel regime bent on dominating the world.

  >Click here to buy Savage Tide

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Greg Barron has qualifications in education and science, and studied terrorism at Scotland’s prestigious St Andrew’s University. He has lived in both North America and Australia and travels widely, combining his interests in politics and current events with a passion for new horizons. His favourite places include the African savannah, the Canadian Rockies and Australia’s Top End. Along with abseiling, offshore boating, skindiving and canoeing, his greatest adventure was a three-hundred-kilometre trek through the wild East Alligator region of Arnhem Land.

  Greg lives on the North Coast of New South Wales with his wife and two sons. Lethal Sky is his third novel. For more information about the author, visit gregbarron.com

  GregBarronAuthor @gregorybarron

  BOOKS BY GREG BARRON

  Rotten Gods

  Savage Tide

  COPYRIGHT

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  First published in Australia in 2014

  This edition published in 2014

  by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

  ABN 36 009 913 517

  harpercollins.com.au

  Copyright © Greg Barron 2014

  The right of Greg Barron to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or t
ransmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  HarperCollinsPublishers

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  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Barron, Greg, author.

  Lethal sky / Greg Barron.

  978 0 7322 9438 0 (pbk)

  978 0 7304 9863 6 (epub)

  Terrorism–Fiction.

  A823.4

  Cover design by HarperCollins Design Studio

  Cover images: Figure by Jon Spaihts; all other images by shutterstock.com

  Author image by Cliff Kent