Angels of Vengeance: The Disappearance Novel 3

by John Birmingham

  Rather than reminding the cop of who paid his salary, it only served to enrage him still further.

  ‘What I know, Mr Downing, is that this city is overrun with security contractors and bottom-feeding mercenaries, and suspending the licence of one for refusing to cooperate with the police isn’t going to make a blind bloody bit of difference to anybody. Except Mr Shah, of course.’

  As hard as it was to keep up with and write down the exchanges flying across the hardwood table, Jules persevered. She took a moment to glance up at Shah, however, to see how he was doing. The soldier-turned-businessman remained impassive. Palmer was making a concerted effort to break him down, but Downing was spoiling all of his attacks.

  ‘When last I checked, Detective, the licensing of military-grade security contractors in the Northern Territory was not the responsibility of the local police. Final authority rests with the federal government, and they act on advice from the Free Port Development Authority. I will stand corrected, of course, but I don’t think the development authority is even required to consult with you on such matters.’

  Surely Downing had pushed it too far now. Palmer looked as angry as Julianne had ever seen a man look without reaching for a weapon. A vein throbbed dark and purple on the side of his neck and he jutted his chin at the Falklander like a gun turret. Shah pre-empted him before he could fire back a reply.

  ‘Is there any news of my friend, Detective?’

  Palmer stared at him, uncomprehending, for a heartbeat.

  ‘Mr Ross . . . Rhino,’ Shah added. ‘We have had no word of him since the explosion. I understand he was evacuated to one of the American ships in port. I wonder if you might have any information about that or his condition.’

  The big policeman gave his head a quick shake – not to answer the question in the negative, more to throw off his surprise at it. He patted his jacket pocket as if searching for something. ‘Sorry, I ah . . . Just give me a second, would you?’

  Palmer pushed himself back from the table and stood up to leave, exiting via a door next to the one-way mirror.

  ‘What the fu –’ Jules began.

  Downing tapped the back of her hand with two fingers and shook his head, almost imperceptibly. He rolled his eyes around the room. They were, of course, still being observed.

  Jules nodded and did her best to tidy up the appalling mess of notes she’d scribbled all over her legal pad. She circled a few questions she had written down for herself. Who had informed Palmer that Shah had been down at the marina? Was it significant that the cop didn’t seem to know who she was? Why had they been dragged into the station to answer a couple of questions that, as Downing had pointed out, could just as easily have been dealt with over the phone? The obvious threat to Shah’s business – was it credible? Did anyone stand behind it, or was Palmer overreaching?

  ‘I’m dreadfully sorry about all this, Mr Shah,’ Downing said, breaking the silence. ‘There really is no reason for you to have to put up with it. This is the lowest form of harassment and quite unacceptable. Give me the word and I will make a formal complaint.’

  To Julianne, the lawyer seemed to be saying exactly what anyone watching and recording them would’ve expected him to say. Role playing, and he was good at it. Shah replied with an inaudible shrug, just as Palmer returned with a colleague.

  ‘Detective Constable Bill Dennis,’ the new man said, introducing himself. ‘My apologies, folks. I meant to be here earlier, but I got caught up in traffic getting back from the navy base. Went out to see your mate, Ross. He’s still with us, but a bit banged up.’

  Jules had to exert a tremendous effort of will to keep herself quiet. Downing seemed to understand her frustration. She was quite desperate for news of the Rhino and found herself feeling guilty that she hadn’t done more to find out how he was. If he had never met her, he wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed right now.

  ‘How badly was Mr Ross injured, Detective Constable?’ the lawyer asked affably. ‘He’s a friend of my client, and we’ve had no word. If possible, I’m sure Mr Shah would like to visit him. But we don’t even know where he is being treated.’

  One wouldn’t have known from the agreeable tone of Piers Downing’s voice that he had locked horns so seriously with Dennis’s partner just a few minutes ago. Jules couldn’t help thinking that if her father had had this chap in his corner when it all went pear-shaped, he might not have retired to the billiards room with his service revolver.

  Both cops sat down, Palmer pushing back from the table a fraction, while Dennis pulled up a chair and opened a manila folder, from which he began to extract details.

  ‘Mr Ross has second-degree burns to thirty per cent of his body. A broken shoulder blade. Four broken ribs. And possible internal injuries. Sorry, I don’t have details on that yet. They’re still operating. He’s being treated on the American ship USS Bataan. When they have him stable they’ll transfer him to Royal Darwin. No word on when that might be, though.’

  Like Palmer, Bill Dennis was a tall, athletic-looking man, somewhere in his thirties. He was also very well dressed for a detective. The stitching and material of his suit spoke of the care and attention of an expert tailor: no sign of uneven weave or missing threads. There was no way this guy was wearing some glue-seamed piece of shit. As Detective Dennis hunched forward over the table to read from the file, the suit seemed to flow around him rather than bunching and wrinkling. When he moved back, it returned to its smooth and pristine state. It’d been a while since Julianne had bothered with such things, but she’d have wagered that between them, Detectives Dennis and Palmer were strutting about in eight or nine grand’s worth of tailoring. Were it not for the imposing mirror filling that far wall, the impression created would have been of two senior executives at the boardroom table of a wealthy mining company. Downing had been right. Everything about Bagot Road Police Station suggested an almost limitless source of funds.

  ‘Thank you for those details, Detective,’ said Shah. ‘It helps to have some information.’

  ‘Sure,’ Dennis replied, favouring both Downing and Shah with a sympathetic smile. ‘It does. And, you know, if there was anything, even the smallest thing, that came to mind about why anybody would want to hurt Mr Ross and you, Mr Shah, that’d be very useful information for us to have.’

  The Australian sounded so reasonable, so friendly and eager to help out, that it was a moment before Jules realised that he and Palmer were running a good cop/bad cop routine. She almost blinked in disbelief. One, that they would even try. And two, that she hadn’t spotted it as soon as the amiable Detective Dennis had wandered in sporting such a disarming expression on his handsome face.

  Downing returned the smile as though he were a kindly and benevolent uncle.

  ‘I am sure my client will give the matter due consideration,’ he said. ‘Of course, it defies belief that two men with a common history – friends, indeed – should be targeted in such a fashion in what for them, remember, remains a foreign city, even if they have chosen to make it their new home. I assure you, Detectives, that if Mr Shah is able to make such a connection, you will find out about it. But as you would appreciate, he works in an industry which, while crucial to maintaining the security and even the good governance of the city and the Territory, is nonetheless plagued by any number of unscrupulous operators, many of whom would not hesitate to step well beyond the boundaries of decency and law to achieve an advantage for themselves.’

  Jules wrote down on the notepad: Shah targeted by rivals?? She circled the question three times. She didn’t believe for a second that that was the case, but the Nepali himself had folded his massive arms and nodded once, grunting in approval. When she’d sought him out after arriving in Darwin, Shah’s assumption about the bombing was that rival security operators, most likely one of the big mercenary companies like Sandline, had lost patience with his refusal to accept their buyout offers. But she knew he didn’t think that now. He agreed with her, that the most likely attacker was
Henry Cesky. The construction magnate had means, motive and form.

  ‘Have you received any threats?’ Palmer asked. ‘From business rivals, I mean.’ He seemed highly sceptical.

  ‘These are not people who are foolish enough to make threats,’ replied Shah, before his legal mouthpiece could answer. ‘They decide. They act.’

  Neither of the detectives was comfortable with the idea of a turf war breaking out between rival military companies in their city. For one thing, the police would be completely overmatched in any such scenario. Shah Security was relatively small, but some of the bigger operators, who provided border control and interdiction services, ran to some serious heavy metal in their inventories. Helicopter gunships, light armoured vehicles, even jet fighters operating out of private airfields in Papua New Guinea and on a couple of islands throughout the Indonesian archipelago, where they usually protected giant mining operations. The mercs weren’t allowed to deploy anything like that here. And even if they were, they themselves would’ve been completely outclassed by the huge military presence in and around Darwin.

  Nevertheless, the large PMCs still had thousands of personnel stationed throughout the city and the Northern Territory, almost all of them ex-military with combat experience. Their declared role in Australia was to provide ‘aid to the civil power’, a conveniently ambiguous mission statement. These duties encompassed everything from running the giant government farms down on the Ord River – prison farms, really, for hundreds of thousands of refugees from countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines, but not, curiously enough, the US – to anti-piracy patrols and even search-and-destroy missions throughout the remnants of the Indonesian state. The long chain of thousands of Indonesian islands, fanning out north and north-west of Australia, had fallen into anarchy and an impossible confusion of internecine revolt.

  Shah’s lawyer lazily tapped at a sheaf of notepaper with an expensive-looking fountain pen. Jules was almost certain it was a Mont Blanc. ‘So perhaps,’ he said, ‘you officers might consider focusing your initial investigative efforts on some of the PMCs that have made it quite clear to my client that they seek a hostile takeover of his operation, should he not be disposed to entertaining thoughts of a more amenable arrangement.’

  ‘Amenable to Sandline and Blackwater,’ added Shah.

  It was difficult to tell whether Palmer was uncomfortable, disgusted or utterly pissed off. Jules put her money on all three.

  ‘You stated before that you had no idea who might be involved in this,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘And I don’t see how the attack at the marina fits into this bullshit idea that one of the merc operators is responsible. What the fuck would they get out of blowing up an old drunk on a boat?’

  She bristled at the insult to her friend but managed to control her reaction with a breathing exercise. Shah was not the only one who could swallow his rage.

  ‘Nothing,’ the former Gurkha replied with a shrug. ‘This is why I do not speculate for you, Detective. Until the attack on Mr Ross, I had my reasons for believing that my rivals may have made the attempt on my family. I even believed the bombing at my house was bungled as a warning – that shoddy operators were used, and possibly even sacrificed, simply to send a message. You cannot deny there is much manoeuvring and ill-feeling in my industry at the moment. There has been blood, and there will be more. So it is natural for me to suspect a rival, in my own case. For Mr Ross, however, I have no explanation. That is why I do not answer your question, Detective Palmer. I truly have no idea.’

  It seemed that everyone in this room was acting out a role of some sort. Jules knew Shah was lying, but not why. While Cesky may have been able to hire men to do his bidding all the way down here, she didn’t imagine he had any real influence in this city. His power base was in Seattle. There may have been a huge American presence in Darwin, because of the local expatriate population and the recent porting of the Combined Fleet, but American power was not what it used to be. She’d only been here a day, but already she could tell that Darwin was one of those cities fêted by history to be a place in which rising empires and falling giants contended for dominance. Cesky might operate here, from a distance, but he was not important to the city or the powers that had gathered here. There would be a good reason, Jules was sure, that Shah and his lawyer hadn’t thrown his name on the table during this interview.

  ‘Well, I think that probably concludes our business, Detectives,’ Downing announced, calmly returning the lid to his expensive pen. ‘And really, I can’t reiterate it enough, my client has an obvious personal interest in seeing this matter resolved. But this is not the way to go about it. This is merely wasting everybody’s time. We are more than happy to make ourselves available for interview whenever necessary, for good reason. But next time, perhaps, a phone call might suffice. Now, if that’s all?’

  Detective Dennis began shaking hands and saying farewells before Palmer could further poison the atmosphere.

  ‘Mr Downing . . . Mr Shah . . . and Ms . . .?’

  ‘Julianne,’ she answered with what she hoped was a pleasant, distracting smile. ‘Jules, if you like.’

  ‘Jules then,’ said Dennis before turning back to the other two. ‘I’m sorry if this is all a bit difficult, gentlemen. But it’s important we chase down every possibility. I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘Of course,’ gushed Downing. ‘But do feel free to simply call next time.’

  Palmer grunted something and excused himself from the room as Mr Shah and his legal team prepared to leave.

  ‘You’re English,’ said Dennis while Jules was gathering up her notes. ‘Been in town very long?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head.

  ‘Julianne is our newest associate,’ Downing interjected, in something of a rush. ‘She’s very new in town.’

  ‘Oh, okay then. Maybe I’ll see you around again, Jules?’

  Was he trying to pick her up? Jules retreated into character.

  ‘Well, I’m just filling in on this case. Short-handed at the office, you know.’ She threw her supposed boss a look that cried, Help me!

  ‘Short-handed indeed,’ agreed Downing. ‘But I’m afraid it’s back to conveyancing and land titles for you, young lady, when you’ve typed up these notes. This job can’t all be about bloody murder and intrigue now, can it, eh?’

  ‘We live in hope,’ said Jules.

  29

  NORTH KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

  She set her alarm to wake her after two sleep cycles. Three hours. It wasn’t ideal, going into the first day of an infiltration already fatigued, after a two-day crunch of briefings, presentations, liaising and general immersion in all things Blackstone.

  ‘Life is pain, princess. Suck it up,’ she groaned after forcing herself out of bed as the clock radio came on.

  The room’s previous occupant had tuned the radio to the Armed Forces Heartland Network, on which a newsreader was now ticking off the overnight items. The US Navy was continuing to scale back its anti-piracy patrols along the East Coast. A severe blizzard that had shut down the West Coast was heading inland and expected to be over KC by nightfall – a point that left Caitlin feeling satisfied with her decision to fly out that morning. Local police were still appealing for witnesses to a hit-and-run accident near the River Market. And tickets for three Avril Lavigne concerts at Kemper Arena in February next year had sold out yesterday within an hour of being available online.

  Caitlin changed into her clothes for the day: jeans, a red Kansas City Chiefs sweatshirt she’d bought from the gift shop in the hotel lobby, and a leather jacket. There would be time enough to get into uniform as Colonel Katherine Murdoch once she arrived in Fort Hood. She inhaled an oatmeal cookie and an apple for breakfast, brushed her teeth and tossed the toiletries bag into her suitcase. She was done with Kansas City. All of the files and briefing notes she had reviewed were sitting in the room’s safe. She always packed her bags the night before departure, meaning she had nothing to do now beside
s organising a ride to the airport and confirming the handover of the room to the security detachment. She was just reaching for the phone when it rang.

  ‘Colonel Murdoch? This is Special Agent Dan Colvin. We met briefly yesterday afternoon, you might recall. There’s something I need to discuss with you, if it’s not too inconvenient.’

  Caitlin was still groggy and not ready to face anything more challenging than a cup of shitty hotel coffee. The voice on the other end of the line sounded oddly upbeat and cheerful. It was a little too early in the morning to be dealing with . . . well, with morning people.

  She remembered this Colvin guy, though. He was with the FBI’s field office here in KC, handling inter-agency liaison. He’d been one of her first contact points when she arrived as the emissary of Chief of Staff Culver. He had taken her to a couple of agencies and briefings. Built like a runner, with a face chiselled out of hard, unforgiving brown basalt, Special Agent Colvin was the type of man who left an impression.

  ‘Hang on, would you, Agent?’

  Caitlin tossed the phone on the bed without giving him a chance to reply. She went through to the bathroom, splashed water on her face and towelled off, which woke her up some. She took three seconds to force herself into the role of Colonel Katherine Murdoch. It was the mental equivalent of pulling on somebody else’s skin.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said upon returning to the line, ‘I didn’t get much sleep last night. Is there something I can help you with?’

  ‘I doubt it, ma’am, but there may be something I can help you with. I have a file note, a request from Mr Culver in fact, to contact you in case of developments in a couple of our investigations. It concerns one of our Mandate settlers, a Mr Miguel Pieraro.’