Angels of Vengeance: The Disappearance Novel 3

by John Birmingham

  ‘Well, Ravi, a lot of the time, when people are teasing you, or being mean to you, it’s not about you at all. It’s about them not feeling very good about themselves. And thinking, maybe, that if they can make somebody else feel bad, it might make them feel better.’

  KILLEEN, TEXAS ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION

  Why did she bother listening to this rubbish? Sofia was tempted to pull the tiny earphones out and throw them away in disgust. She often felt that way when listening to President Kipper’s radio talks. He was one of those men who was always trying to see the best in people, even when there was nothing good to be seen.

  She pulled the blanket tighter around herself, huddling deeper into the armchair that looked out on the empty street. Her fourth, and she suspected her last, hideout. At least in Temple or Killeen. If she got out alive, she supposed that the rest of her life would be spent in hideouts.

  ‘If I could speak to those boys who are bullying you, Ravi,’ the President said, ‘I would ask them just how tough they really are. Do you think they’re as tough as one of our Cavalry troopers chasing pirates out of the West Coast cities? Or one of our railroad men, like your dad, working right out in the wilderness, way past the frontier? Are they even as tough as old Mrs Cooper, the lady who wrote the last letter I read out, who gets up before the sun every morning to attend to her chickens, so she can take fresh eggs down to the militia post for all the men and women there who’ve been up through the night keeping her safe from bandits? What do you think, Ravi – do you think those guys at school are that tough? I don’t. But I’ll bet you are.’

  Madre de dios, she thought, rolling her eyes in the darkness. No wonder Papa had despaired of the federales ever doing anything about the murder of their family. Or about any of the attacks down in Texas.

  Sofia shook her head, causing the blanket to rustle loudly in her ears. One of the earplugs for her little transistor radio came out, but rather than pulling out the other one and giving up on the broadcast, she hunted around inside the folds of the blanket until she’d found it and pressed it back in.

  It was a terrible thing to lose faith in someone. Not the worst thing in the world, of course, and Sofia Pieraro was well acquainted with the worst things in the world. But she felt keenly her disappointment with President Kipper. She had written him a letter once, just after they’d arrived in Kansas City. She’d told him exactly what had happened when the road agents attacked their farm, and of the atrocities she witnessed on the trail. And of how it had to be true that Jackson Blackstone was responsible for it all. But James Kipper had not read that letter on the radio. He hadn’t answered her questions about what he was going to do. He certainly hadn’t sent any tough Cavalry troopers down into the Mandate to chase the road agents away. Or even to catch them, and hang them by their necks, as her father and the Mormons had done.

  She ate a handful of old, tinned fruit cake, washed down with a cup of metallic-tasting water. She was deep inside Blackstone’s territory, and could not afford the luxury of hot food or a camp light. Hunkered down in an empty house near the edge of Fort Hood, she had to be very careful about attracting attention to herself. It was possible, she had discovered, to move about the town during the day, but it was best to maintain the appearance of a dutiful servant running an errand. Having spent just enough time walking the streets of Killeen to build up a mental map of the place that she could relate to the actual maps she carried with her, Sofia preferred to remain in hiding. And this small, suburban bungalow, just one in a street that had been reclaimed from the Disappeared, was an excellent hiding place. The Texas settlement authorities were more organised than Seattle’s, and the entire street, and half of the subdivision in the streets around it, stood ready to accept the next wave of arrivals and settlers to Blackstone’s kingdom. There was no electricity yet, not that she would have used it. But water ran freely from the faucet and, praise be to God, it ran hot, thanks to the solar panels up on the roof. Even in winter they produced deliciously hot water at the turn of a tap. The first thing she’d done after breaking in and securing her new camp site, was to run a deep, steaming bath.

  ‘And I’d like the rest of you to think about that too,’ continued Kipper. ‘We have better things to be doing than fighting among each other.’

  Here it comes, thought Sofia. The weekly sermon about everybody just getting on together. She could take no more of it. She was tired from the effort of sneaking herself out of Temple and into Killeen. If only she’d been able to take Cindy’s advice and catch the shuttle bus that ran between the two settlements, but little Mexican girls toting survival packs and their own artillery support were better off making their transport arrangements privately.

  Camped now on the western edge of town, she couldn’t see the military base, but she knew it to be only ten minutes past the empty school over the road, and the golf course behind it. The golf links had grown wild in the years since the Wave and were surrounded by a high chain-link fence, from which signs hung promising that the course would reopen by the end of 2010. That was years away yet and Sofia was grateful for the lack of progress towards the goal. The wild grass and thick stands of trees would provide her with ample cover for when she needed to approach the fort.

  She turned off the radio and returned the little unit to her main backpack. It was late now, and she had rested through part of today already, but she knew from having stood the midnight watch so many times on the trail that it was best to take whatever rest one could when the chance came along.

  After readying the smaller backpack and checking her weapons, Sofia retired to the main bedroom, where she had already drawn the heavy curtains. There was no linen for the bed, but she had her sleeping bag and the blanket she’d salvaged from the motel back in Temple. Crawling into the bag and tenting the blanket above her head, she used a small torch to take a few minutes to study her map of the town and army base yet again. Once confident of the route, she flicked off the torch and laid her head down, saying a prayer for the souls of her family and of all those friends she had lost.

  *

  ‘So, I’m just asking Governor Blackstone to put aside any personal ill feeling he might have towards me, and to ask himself whether he thinks that constantly butting heads is what’s best for the country. We have our differences. Very serious differences. But I hope that in the end we can put them aside. There’s just too much work to do.’

  Kipper turned off the radio with the remote. His appealing glance towards Barbara and Jed brought forth two very different responses. His wife smiled, almost apologetically. The White House Chief of Staff struggled to rein in his frustration.

  ‘Too soft, Jed?’

  Culver placed his empty brandy balloon on the mantelpiece. He folded his arms, chewed his lip and invested a few moments staring at the rug in front of the hearth.

  ‘Well, you know my view, sir. We should be muscling up to Mad Jack, knocking him off balance. Not giving him a chance to set his defences.’

  ‘Spoken like an old college wrestler,’ said Barb, smiling a little.

  ‘Maybe so,’ he conceded. ‘But you know, Mr President, that we have to do something about this guy, and sometime soon. Do you really want to be cosying up to a guy you’re about to punch in the back of the head?’

  Kip smiled. ‘That’d have to be the best place to be, wouldn’t it, Jed? Nice and close, so I can hit him even harder.’

  Culver ignored the rhetorical fend and paced over to the drinks cabinet with exaggerated care to fix himself a bourbon. He was drinking a little heavily of late, thought Kip. Even during the worst days of the fighting in New York, Jed had restricted himself to two drinks of an evening, and only after clocking off. Not that any of them ever really went off duty.

  ‘You’re surely not going to fall for this bait and switch with Morales, are you?’ Culver asked.

  Kipper stole a glance at his wife. The First Lady had been vetted for her own security clearance, but she knew nothing yet about the Federation�
�s special forces personnel they’d caught down in St Teresa, Florida. Or rather, that Blackstone had caught. As for Kip, he didn’t know which of those recent revelations from Tusk Musso angered him more. Roberto Morales’s pissant little colonisation scam, or the fact that yet again Blackstone had let his imperial ego get the better of him, this time by pushing his forces into parts of the country they had absolutely no right to be in.

  Barbara tilted her head inquisitively. ‘Is this one of those conversations where I should discreetly leave the room?’

  Jed answered for his boss. ‘Nah, Barb. You’re going to be hearing all about it soon enough anyway.’ He threw down the bourbon in one hit, before topping up the glass once more.

  The President could see the gears in the other man’s mind clanking and grinding together as he forced himself to walk away from the drinks bar. Kip worried about him. His weight was getting out of hand, and he was normally much better than this at handling pressure. Since taking on the jihadi prisoners last week as a special project, however, his Chief of Staff seemed moodier and more irascible than ever. He even disappeared at times, absenting himself from the routine of Dearborn House for a whole day just recently, without explanation, beyond muttering ‘Fucking Vancouver’ when asked. Kip wondered if he was leaning on him too much.

  ‘Mad Jack had some long-range patrols scouting around in northern Florida,’ he explained to his wife.

  ‘That’s a long way from Texas,’ she replied, cocking one eyebrow.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Culver.

  Kipper frowned at him before continuing. ‘Well, that’s par for the course, with the Governor. He’s got his fingers stuck into cookie jars he shouldn’t all over the place. This is just the latest. But for once, I’m not much fussed about it, because it might turn out to be helpful. TDF grabbed up a small squad of Federation special ops guys who were looking to become a giant pain in the ass somewhere down the line. Forewarned is forearmed, as Grandma used to say, and I think for once we might actually owe Blackstone a thank-you. It’s still early enough in the story for us to respond without having to start throwing around aircraft carriers and army groups. Neither of which, you might’ve noticed, we can spare.’

  Jed left his bourbon on the mantelpiece, untouched, and dropped himself into an armchair with an audible grunt.

  ‘So you’re not going to be giving him what he wants then? We’re not gearing up for a war down there?’

  ‘I’m going to pay him the courtesy of taking his paranoia seriously,’ said Kipper. ‘Because, at least in this instance, it’s paid off for us. But no, I don’t see that we need to be pulling very limited resources out of the Pacific or the Atlantic, or even out of the heartland, for that matter. I agree with Tusk and this air force colonel – what’s her name, the one he’s got down there with him. We let Roberto know that we’re awake to him, and that if we catch them doing it again, we’ll send a cruise missile through his bedroom window one night. A gangster like him, he’ll understand that. Respect it too.’

  Jed Culver appeared to be discomfited by the conversation, which Kip thought unusual. After all, he was actually agreeing with his Chief of Staff. Most days of the week, Jed had to be restrained from throwing cruise missiles through people’s bedroom windows. Maybe it was the drink. He hadn’t volunteered the name of Musso’s USAF analyst when Kipper couldn’t recall it, and it was staying across those little details that the former attorney prided himself on. The man was a supercomputer in a three-piece suit. It was how he’d caught the link between Blackstone and the Turkish businessman, Ozal, and from there to Baumer.

  ‘Better knock off the drinks, buddy. It’s slowing you down,’ said Kip, trying for a light tone.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right . . . I’m sorry, Kip. I don’t like to admit it, but sometimes it just all piles up on top of me.’

  It was Barbara who stood up and fetched him his bourbon from the mantelpiece.

  ‘Oh Jed,’ she said. ‘Finish your drink, get yourself home to Marilyn and have a proper rest. You can start all over again tomorrow. Even Machiavelli took a break every now and then. I think Kip forgets sometimes how much you do for him.’ She levelled a severely disapproving look at her husband. ‘I think he forgets just how much work you put into protecting him from Jack Blackstone, for one.’

  Kipper was about to protest, but Culver beat him to it.

  ‘Don’t be too hard on him, Barb,’ he replied. ‘He’s got me to protect him from Blackstone, but nobody to protect him from me.’

  And with that, he threw down his drink, mumbled goodnight, and took himself off to find a car and driver.

  ‘Jed really needs a day off,’ said Kip once they were alone. ‘D’you think he’d like to come and do a bit of trail walking with me?’

  Barbara Kipper didn’t need to answer. The look on her face told him exactly how stupid a question that had been.

  49

  DARWIN, NORTHERN TERRITORY

  She had never seen the man before. He wasn’t even vaguely familiar – and he was the sort of chap you would’ve noticed. All elbows, knees and awkward angularity, this man looked like he’d stand about six and a half foot. Had he been standing.

  When Jules first saw him, he was slumped in a chair, his hands secured behind his back, and his feet fastened to the legs with plastic zip ties. One of Shah’s young Gurkhas – Baran, if she remembered correctly – stood behind him with a drawn kukri dagger. The shining silver blade remained free of blood, so far. But she knew that Baran would not return it to his scabbard without a few drops to taste. She wondered if the man in the chair knew that.

  ‘Miss Julianne, I would like you to meet Norman Parmenter,’ said Shah, handing her the captive’s wallet.

  She ignored the man’s murderous glare. The wallet was thick with plastic and paper, some of it quite old and faded. Dockets, receipts, a few handwritten notes, all of it the sort of thing one found in any man’s wallet when he didn’t clean it out very often. It lent credence to the notion that this might well be Norman Parmenter. Whoever the fuck he was.

  Of course, that credence could have been very carefully constructed. But she thought not. Commando Barbie, back in New York, she was the sort of person you might expect to lob into your life with an artfully constructed false identity. Even Nick Pappas, she thought, might have had a passing acquaintance with such things. But there was something about Parmenter’s old, battered wallet, with a couple of faded photographs of him posing with some woman at the seaside, that suggested authenticity.

  Downstairs, the rock concert, dogfight, mixed martial arts tournament, or whatever, was rolling along at high volume, the punters seemingly unconcerned with a brief outbreak of gunplay on the upper floors. The room in which they were enjoying a chat with Parmenter appeared to be an unused office. An old metal desk, some plastic chairs and the 2007 Pirelli calendar – the first published after a three-year hiatus – constituted the sum of its furnishings.

  Jules hobbled over to sit herself up on the desk next to Shah, feeling her bruises and strained muscles every inch of the way. Her neck was so stiff and sore, she had to turn her whole body rather than just moving her head. She needed a long hot bath, a cold G and T, and some answers. She needed to know the Rhino was going to pull through, and that Cesky was going to leave off. She didn’t need him brought to justice, or anything so fucking infantile. She just wanted to be left alone. Perhaps, with one of his hirelings now in her possession, they could come to an understanding: he could give up his vengeance kick, and she could keep her mouth shut about it. She was about to speak, to ask their prisoner why he was trying to kill her and her friends, when somebody wrapped gently on the office door.

  Shah bid whoever it was to enter, and Nick Pappas appeared. He smiled at Jules and said, somewhat cryptically, ‘We’ve got fifteen minutes.’

  Shah seemed to understand what he meant.

  ‘This the last of the Mohicans, is it?’ Pappas said, pointing at Parmenter, who still hadn’t spoken.

&n
bsp; The Australian was holding a phone, identical to the one he’d given her at the café yesterday morning. Unlike Julianne, Pappas knew exactly what he was doing. The screen lit up as his fingers danced over it, and after a few seconds he held up the mobile to compare their prisoner with an image that appeared on screen.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ he asked, passing the phone to Shah. The old soldier took it and spent a few moments considering the likeness. He nodded at the young Gurkha, fluttering his fingers under his chin. Grabbing a handful of Parmenter’s lanky grey hair, Baran pulled his head back with brute force, so that they could all get a look at his face.

  ‘Fuck you,’ he growled in a recognisably American accent. He sounded as though he hailed from the north-east, like the Rhino. Jules wondered how he’d got into this line of work. Ex-military? Mafia? He didn’t look the type. Creepy rather than hard.

  Shah passed the phone to Julianne. She couldn’t immediately make out what she was looking at, but the meaning of the image soon resolved itself. It was a still, taken from security footage at the Gonzales Road Marina. A man was walking away from the Rhino’s mooring. A long-billed baseball cap hid his face, but there was no mistaking the unusually tall frame nor the stiff, inelegant gait of a man who was all knees and elbows.

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t stand up in court,’ said Jules, ‘but you can say fuckity bye-bye to any legal recourse, Norman. You’re well out of luck. So unless you’re interested in finding out what it feels like to have a kukri dagger inside your windpipe, I’d suggest you entertain us with a little story.’