Angels of Vengeance: The Disappearance Novel 3 (49 page)

‘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.

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.

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.’

Shah inclined his head, almost imperceptibly, at the young man carrying the cruel blade. Baran was still holding Parmenter’s head back by his hair, but the blade flashed up now and described a short transition across the man’s brow. The fighting knife had been sharpened to such a fine edge that there was probably no pain. At first. Just a cold burning sensation, followed by shock. Blood began pouring from a long gash, blinding the captive, who squealed at the unexpected violation.

‘Jeez, mate,’ said Pappas. ‘You’d better watch out with that thing. It’s sharp. You’ll end up scalping the bloke.’

Parmenter began to gobble for air as though he was drowning. Panic took over. Shah came off the desk in one fluid movement and drove a spear-hand strike into his solar plexus. It would have knocked the American onto his back had Baran not braced himself for the impact. Instead, it drove all the air from Parmenter’s body, without doubling him up. The restraints kept him secured.

‘Mr Parmenter will require a minute to compose himself,’ Shah declared.

Julianne took the chance to squeeze Pappas’s arm in greeting. She’d been so surprised when he walked in, yet his appearance was not really unexpected. Not when she thought about it. Shah obviously relied on him as a conduit to the local power structure, and the shadow state that was the real power in the city.

‘Do we have time for this? I mean, here?’ she asked waving her hand around the room.

‘We’ve got about ten minutes,’ Nick replied. ‘Then we’ll have to move him.’ He didn’t explain any further, but nor did he give the impression that further explanation was necessary.

‘Deep breaths, Mr Parmenter,’ said Shah. ‘That’s right. You’ll feel better in no time, as soon as you’ve told us everything we need to know. I’m sure you understand the alternative. It would be overly dramatic to go into details.’

Parmenter struggled to fill his lungs and blink away the blood that was blinding him.

Julianne turned back to him. ‘Who’s paying you?’ she demanded to know. ‘I don’t care how much. I just want to know who sent you, and who else is on your list.’

Baran pulled Parmenter’s head back again, slowly this time, lest he actually remove the man’s scalp. Jules blanched at the sight of bone inside the gaping, lipless maw the kukri dagger had opened up. The Gurkha laid the edge of his knife hard up against Parmenter’s nose. It had a salutary effect.

‘Rubin,’ the prisoner rasped, as if fearful that he might not get the information out quickly enough. ‘His name is Sam Rubin.’

She had been so sure he would say Henry Cesky’s name that she was momentarily knocked sideways. And then she laughed. A short, joyless sound.

‘What a wanker,’ she said.‘Rubin was the cut-out Cesky used to get the Rhino and me to Manhattan. He was the guy we were supposed to get the papers for, the deeds to the Sonoma gas field.’

A smile broke out over her face like the first dawn of spring. Pappas was still frowning, but Shah understood. His head bobbed up and down as he folded his arms.

‘The useless bastard has been using the same cover, the same cut-out, to organise his contractors,’ Jules continued. ‘It was probably a good idea at the time. He’s probably using some dead guy as a patsy. Nick, I’m sure if you look into this Samuel Rubin, of the California Bar, or whatever, you’ll find he ceased to exist shortly after morning teatime on 14 March 2003. He’s a black box. Cesky can use him to hide all his bloody villainy, or at least this villainy. There’s probably other stuff he’s done that he’s hidden elsewhere. But Rubin is the contact point for this fucking teddy bear’s picnic. He was our contact for New York, and he was this loser’s contact when New York didn’t work out. It’s London to a fucking brick that if we’d been able to shake down the other hitters they’d have given us the same information: they were working for Samuel Rubin. The name that ties Henry Cesky to our friend Norman, here, by way of the idiots he sent after us in Manhattan.’

Shah remembered now. ‘Mr Cesky sends his regards,’ he quoted. He was nodding like Pappas. But he wasn’t finished.

A raised eyebrow was all it took for the knife to dig into the side of Parmenter’s nose. Blood flowed immediately and the erstwhile contract killer made a desperate gurgling sound as he tried to push himself away from the blade. Shah’s man held him fast.

‘I’m afraid we’re not done yet, Mr Parmenter,’ said the older Gurkha. ‘Am I right to assume you were in charge of this operation locally?’

Parmenter replied with a guttural grunting noise that sounded like assent.

‘And you were supplied with a line of credit and introductions so that you might raise whatever support you would need here in Darwin, is that correct?’

Again the prisoner did his best to agree without moving his head in any way that would cause his nose to end up on the floor. Shah waved his fingers and the knife withdrew. Parmenter wheezed out a ragged sigh.

‘The men you hired for today’s operation,’ said Shah. ‘Where did you find them? Who gave you their names?’

The fear was back in Parmenter’s eyes and he shook his head in short, jerky motions, spraying droplets of bright red blood in a fan in front of him.

‘Come along now, Mr Parmenter. I can understand your being nervous. The men you dealt with were undoubtedly dangerous and unpleasant. But you are here with us now.’

He paused a beat.

‘And we can also be very dangerous and most unpleasant. And, in contrast with your hirelings, who are all now dead, our competence is not in question. So, Mr Parmenter, I ask you again, in this quiet room, where nobody in the world knows you to be, and immediately outside of which the bodies of your accomplices are stacked like cordwood, whom did you go to for your hired help?’

‘Whom?’ asked Pappas, in a jolly tone. ‘Are you sure it’s not “who”?’

‘No,’ said Jules, playing along. ‘Definitely “whom”.’

Parmenter’s face was a mask of blood below the line cut into his forehead. It made it difficult for Julianne to be certain, but she thought he may have lost much of his colouring.

‘You must have heard my friend say we are on rather a tight schedule here this morning,’ Shah went on, his tone conversational. ‘It would be of no moment for us to add one more body to those we have piled up outside. And in a minute, I am afraid, we may have to. Unless you are able to satisfy my curiosity. Who, Mr Parmenter, put you in touch with your subcontractors? You must have had references. You have not long been in Australia. So who is your local contact?’

‘Oh, come on! I thought we’d settled on “whom”,’ joked Pappas.

Parmenter began to shake. The slightest of tremors at first, but building quickly to such an intensity that the chair began to rattle against the floor. Shah held out his hand for the kukri dagger.

‘Sandline, it was Sandline,’ said Parmenter, as though coughing up a furball. ‘I got in three days ago and went straight to Sandline. Rubin made the introductions.’

The name dropped like a cannonball at their feet. Cesky had somehow linked up with one of the biggest private military companies and security contractors working in the Northern Territory.

‘Well, that could be tricky,’ said Pappas. ‘What do you want to do about that?’

Shah smiled. ‘For now, I will do nothing. If one stands by the bank of the river long enough, the severed heads of one’s enemies will float by. So for now, I will stand by the river.’

Pappas checked his watch. ‘Well, time to hit the frog and toad, my friends,’ he said. ‘What do you want to do with this criminal mastermind?’

Parmenter fixed him with an expression of woebegone helplessness. ‘You have to let me go,’ he pleaded, directing his words at Jules. ‘It’s nothing personal, ma’am. Weren’t nothing personal when you killed my guys today. Same thing for me. I just took a job, and believe me, I’m happy to walk away from it. Your friend, Ross, the big guy, I’m sorry about that. I –’

She took one step forward and swung the base of her pistol grip into his face with as much force as she could, connecting with his cheekbone and shattering it. The dull, wet crack sounded like a tree branch breaking and Parmenter went over with the inevitability of a rotten oak falling to the woodsman’s axe. As he crashed to the ground, Jules drove a kick into his face, smashing his nose flat. None of the men moved to stop her.

‘Who else?’ she shouted. ‘Was there anyone else besides the Rhino and me? Did you have any other contracts from Rubin?’

She didn’t see much point in asking him about Cesky. It would only confuse him.

‘Julianne?’ said Pappas, but she ignored him.

The SIG Sauer was still warm from the rounds she had fired downstairs. It was in her hand, pointing at the man on the floor before even she knew what she was doing. Jules fired one shot and Parmenter’s kneecap exploded in red ruin. He screamed and she stamped down on the joint she had just destroyed.

‘Who else, you manky little cunt? Who else have you killed?’

‘Just the Lebanese guy,’ he wailed. ‘Zood. His stupid fucking name was Zood.’

She
almost
relaxed at that. Her body, which had tightened itself into a giant fist,
almost
unclenched.

‘And a Mexican,’ Parmenter hurried on to add, in case she thought he was trying to hide something from her. ‘Just a Mexican. After I did Zood, they said I did good,’ he blabbed, snorkelling air in through a thick soup of mucus and blood. ‘So they sent me to Kansas City. It was just a few days ago, and . . .’