Leopard Dreaming (11 page)

‘What’s that, Mira? You want to warn me of what?’

‘Nothing!’
I’m trying to tell you, the real killer is …

Glass shattered, music died and the vehicle slewed sideways.

‘Whoa-ho-ho!’ Lockman stamped on the gas and slewed sideways across lanes. ‘What do you know? A rusty old Land Cruiser.’ He sounded as if he’d known it to be back there all along. Zigzagging and still accelerating through traffic, he caused horns to blare all around them, but he didn’t sound the least bit intimidated. More like he was celebrating. ‘I was beginning to wonder what it would take to upset them.’

Wind whistled louder behind Mira as the diesel Hilux continued to accelerate.

‘What’s happening?’ she shouted over the blustery breeze and road noise. ‘Are you okay?’

‘No. They killed the CD player.’

‘A warning shot?’ Adrenaline made it hard to sit still either way. ‘Surely they wouldn’t try to kill you while you’re driving, or they might kill me by accident.’

‘You think?’ He laughed. ‘Sounds like you’ve got more confidence in them than in me.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘No, you were about to tell me something, which pissed them off, seriously.’

‘Hardly! You goaded me.’

A truck engine rumbled too close to Mira’s side window; the truck itself remaining invisible as they overtook it, but she smelled cattle manure and saw the ghostly double lines cross underneath her on the bitumen as Lockman veered out of his lane. ‘Watch the road!’ she shouted.

‘I’m on it.’ He swerved sharply away from the smell, and ploughed through a ghostly busload of rowdy school children.

‘You might as well tell me, Mira. They’re already cranky.’

Another shot shattered the rear view mirror, showering her in glass fragments.

Lockman chuckled again. ‘Silly bastards just shot the remains of their listening device. Go ahead, it’s safe to say anything you want now.’

‘You knew they were back there all this time?’

‘I needed to string them along this far.’

‘String
them
? Or string me? If shooting would kill audio on that thing, why didn’t you just do that in the first place?’

‘Smoke and mirrors. Kitching uses that tactic for evasion. Why not use it against him?’

He braked hard, jumped the centre island, swung about one-eighty and sped back along the freeway in
the opposite direction, leaving a squeal of brakes and horns blaring behind them again; the racket was fast becoming a theme song. ‘I had to be sure I had them all.’

‘You’re crazy!’

‘You keep saying that.’

‘Take the hint, Lieutenant! They’ll kill you if you stay with me!’

‘They’ll have to improve their aim.’ He shifted down gears again and crossed into a much slower lane. ‘Might as well tell me whatever it is they don’t want you to say. They’re going to assume you just told me anyway.’

‘Not if I can talk to Kitching alone. I’ll explain it. Tell him we’ve had a big fight and parted company, so he’ll know you won’t be around to get in his way.’

‘Over my dead body.’

‘You big boy scout! That’s exactly what I’m trying to prevent. Do you think I need any more guilt in my life?’

‘I’m not leaving you alone with him, Mira. Forget it. If you go with him, it’s over. End game. We’ve already covered that.’

Racing down the off-ramp, he came to a T-intersection with both arms of the road stretching east-west along the river.

‘Time to ditch this.’

‘What? The car? But that will put us on foot!’

‘Not for long.’

Turning east, he passed into the ghostly shadow of the overpass, where the freeway and river banks were thickly lined with mangroves and scrubby bushes.

‘Brace yourself. We’re turning … here.’ He braked hard, this time without skidding as he skewed around under the freeway, jumped another kerb carefully enough to avoid setting off the airbags, and nose-dived downhill over a grassy embankment into the scrub nearest to the river.

Mira screamed and clawed at her invisible door and seat belt. She saw flashes of her father’s face, drowned, bloated and blue, hanging upside-down from a mango tree in the family orchard with his head immersed in a barrel of homemade liquid fertiliser. Drowned just like she would be if she couldn’t escape the car before Lockman hit the water.

Lockman shielded her with one arm while braking to an abrupt halt in a thicket of lantana halfway down. ‘We’re here. Quiet now and let them pass like in the cane fields.’

This time he cut the engine and instead of dust, the scent of sweet sap and flowers filled her senses; today’s branches scratching at her invisible door while yesterday’s ghosts bloomed in, around and
through
her. Reflex caused her to swipe at them, adrenaline and fear making her pulse race faster.

‘You nearly drowned me!’ She slapped his shoulder repeatedly, unable to shake off the memory of finding her father dead. She’d barely turned nine years old the day she’d cut him down and scratch out his grave. A hard job for small hands, alone.

Lockman caught her against him, deftly yet gently also silencing her with his hand cupped over her cheek rather than her mouth. ‘Listen,’ he whispered. ‘Now we wait for them to make their next mistake.’ He drew his Glock with a slick swish beside her ear, while above them she could hear the sounds of the freeway and the bray of an electric train horn at a level crossing a little further away. Wheels skidded around the nearby bend, but the petrol engine revved louder as the driver accelerated instead of braking.

‘That’s it,’ he said, releasing her finally. ‘Now it’s our turn to wreck their day.’

‘We’re going after them?’

‘No need. We know where they’ll be.’ He unclipped her seatbelt and leaned across to unlock her door.
‘Don’t get out until I come round for you. The ground’s rough here. Grab Pockets and I’ll grab our survival kit.’

‘Survival kit? You mean you expected all this?’

‘On a day with you?’ He sounded amused. ‘Trouble was guaranteed.’

She heard him make a move for his own door, but she seized the opportunity to catch him by the sleeve. ‘You have a plan you want to share with me?’

‘Same plan as always. We’re winging it.’

L
ockman left the keys in the ignition and his driver’s door unlocked. On the dashboard, he also left his sunnies with the tracking device that he’d removed from Mira’s shades and kept in his chest pocket, ensuring the only steps Garland had tracked so far had been his.

This tactic seemed like the best trap he could lay for Kitching’s men pursuing them: using a signal locator that would attract opposing forces from both the colonel and general, while giving him time to finally slip off the grid with Mira.

Climbing out with stealth and speed, and leaning over their camping gear in the rear tray of the Hilux, he grabbed his backpack with its emergency survival equipment, including spare clips for his Glock, the signal jammer, med kit and a few other small tricks — all the while keeping an eye on Mira through the rear window, more worried about her than he dared to reveal. If she hadn’t mistrusted surveillance devices so much, he would have confided in her about the one he’d been wearing, and the two spares he kept in his bag, disabled temporarily.

No sound of their pursuers returning yet, as far as he could tell. He would have asked her to double
check, since her hearing seemed far more acute, but she had enough to worry about already.

As she leaned behind the driver’s seat, gathering the joey’s pouch and thermos and hooking them over her own shoulder, he jogged around to her door and opened it, keen to help her out before she could trip or fall.

‘Can you handle a short hike uphill?’ He kicked aside a broken sapling. ‘Truck ploughed us a path, but there’s a wombat hole here. Can you see it?’

He knew she’d much prefer to climb out on her own, if she could. Much like his sisters, she seemed too strong willed for her own good at times, so when she huffed in frustration, he knew it wasn’t at him.

She opened her arms as reluctant permission for him to lift her over it, and he did.

Light for her height. Her cotton dress felt thin and soft enough for him to notice the warmth of her skin. He set her down near the rear wheel of the vehicle so she could brace herself.

‘Straight up that way?’ She pointed almost precisely, no doubt assuming he’d taken the clearest path down in the first place.

‘Two steps to your right first will avoid the crushed saplings.’

‘Wait, I need my bag.’ She stretched to reach it herself, using the shape of the vehicle and bulge of camping gear as guides to finding where she’d left it. ‘Must have rolled. Can you reach it for me, please?’

‘No need for spare clothes, Mira.’ He slammed the door behind her. ‘Survival kit only.’

‘It’s not heavy.’

‘You’ve got Pockets.’

‘She’s no heavier than a handbag, and she can hang on my shoulder. Please? I don’t care about the clothes, really, just the other things.’

He knew what she meant. That bag contained her three most treasured possessions: a Braille book of
poetry, a Braille edition of
The Scarlet Pimpernel
, and a small toothpaste dispenser shaped like a skinny bird.

‘And what about your guitar?’

Handmade for him, and shaped like a machine gun, campfire nights certainly wouldn’t be the same if he lost it. She enjoyed playing it too, so maybe that’s why it seemed to worry her, but so long as he could be with her under a million stars, that’s all he truly cared about.

‘We can’t just leave them,’ she argued.

‘We’ll be back.’ He grabbed her arm, but she caught hold of the truck.

‘Guitar and bag,’ she insisted. ‘We’ll look less like fugitives. Think about it. How many would carry guitar cases? More importantly, you mustn’t be worse off after this because of me.’

‘Mira, you’ve got the wallaby, and I’ll need my hands free. That’s enough for this trip.’

‘So I’ll carry the lot.’ She hooked the wallaby pouch higher onto her shoulder and stretched out her other arm. ‘I’ve got a strong back and two shoulders. Load me up.’

Lockman kicked the truck tyre. ‘Who are you fighting now, Mira? Him or me?’

‘You don’t understand. Those books helped me dissolve out through my fingers into another world during my darkest days, and that toothpaste dispenser … It must sound silly to you, but aside from these wretched glasses, it’s the only considerate gift anyone’s ever given me. In the orphanages and asylums, staff only gave us gifts in compliance with our annual event checklists. And it came from Ben’s mum as a peace offering before Kitching’s pals got to her. She’ll hate me forever now, so I can hardly abandon such things on a river bank. What if the truck slides and sinks or floats away?’

‘Fair argument.’ He hooked the guitar and spare backpack over her shoulder. ‘And when their bulk
makes you stand out in a crowd far from here, how will you weigh them then in comparison to the matron’s life?’

She dumped them back in the truck like hot potatoes. ‘When you put it that way.’

‘You mind if I help you up the bank now, or do you want to argue about that too?’

‘I can make it.’ She took two steps to her right, and tripped over the end of the sapling he’d warned her about.

‘Sorry,’ he said, meaning it as he hooked her up by the elbow. ‘I’m an idiot. I meant two of
my
steps. I should have translated.’

Too busy watching out for her, he realised. She slapped the leaves of the sapling, as if venting the excess of her pent-up frustration. ‘I don’t mean to be so much trouble, honestly.’

‘I know.’ He took her hand and helped her to the top of the grassy embankment, where a concrete jogging path gave her much clearer footing, sufficient to let her go safely.

Glancing about to keep watch for unfriendlies, he led Mira across the road and down one city block towards the train station.

Her hand felt so delicate in his, and yet so hot-blooded and strong. Her cheeks flushed pink with exertion within a few minutes and he slowed their pace, mindful that she’d only been released from Serenity within the last two months, and her main form of exercise before that had been fighting with staff to escape. He couldn’t help but admire her for that. Not only her tenacity and desire for independence, but her wilful determination to keep a grip on reality, or in her case, two realities at once. Just trying to imagine time and the world as she saw it was enough to make his head spin. In many ways, she was as tough as any drill sergeant, and yet so graceful and light on her
feet — and infinitely more beautiful. He had a hard time keeping his eyes off her, let alone his hands, especially in the rare moments when she took off her shades to rest and reveal those hauntingly beautiful eyes. So intriguing, they could never get old. Not to him anyway.

Ice-blue, they often reflected the colours around her; bouncing normal light like shattered mirrors, while gleaming like diamonds and refracting the slower light frequencies she needed to see everything that she did. Her eyes were easily the most amazing of all things he’d ever seen in his career as security for military research and development. Set in such an elfin face they also made her seem deceptively fragile, but as he led her to the stairs that would take them up to the station on the next street, she dug in her heels, as determined as any tug-o-war team.

‘We can’t go that way,’ she insisted. ‘The platform will have hidden security cameras. You might as well send Kitching an invitation to watch us with Coke and popcorn.’

‘That’s the plan.’

‘Oh, terrific! I’ve never had popcorn. If he catches us fast enough, do you think he might share while it’s still warm?’ She tried to pull away, but he let her go instantly.

‘I won’t force you to go anywhere against your will. But come with me and I’ll teach you to use security cameras to your advantage.’

She raised a curious brow at him. ‘How? All the platforms are hooked into facial recognition systems with police, so changing props like hair, hats and glasses never help. I learned that once the hard way at a strict orphanage.’

‘Ever heard of laying a false trail? Now lean into me, please. It’s easier to show you than to explain it.’

Reluctantly, she complied.

He hugged her around the waist, trying to think of her as just another military research scientist, even though she’d been treated more like a lab rat. Yet she fit so snugly under his arm, and smelled so good. Tasted good too. He wanted more, but kissing her hadn’t made her mad enough at him to dull any of his respect for her. A bitch-fit had always been the biggest turn-off for him in other women, but Mira Chambers didn’t seem to have any irrational screamer-genes in her, so his attempts at stirring that level of response had failed dismally. He coughed to clear his throat, if not his head. ‘Try to limp now, please, as if you’ve been injured.’

She scowled at the ground. ‘Quit being so polite. Or I can’t stay mad at you.’

‘Better you see that side than the other.’

‘Why? I already know how lethal you can be. That’s not the side of you that scares me.’

‘It’s not?’ He began to limp too as they scaled the steps.

She hugged against him tighter, as if to prove it.

A male voice hummed a cheery tune on the platform to their left, and three schoolgirls laughed as they ran by — just a normal weekday community that he imagined would look similar to the silent ghostly commuters that Mira would see through her yester-haze.

‘Eyes down,’ Lockman whispered. ‘First camera is roof-high at two o’clock. The trick is to look like you’re trying to avoid the camera while letting it catch you. And stay injured, so pursuers will assume we’ll take the fastest, easiest route.’

At a wall of teller machines and ticket dispensers, he withdrew the daily maximum of a grand each from his four accounts, paid for two train fares and pocketed the rest in his jacket, also lingering long enough to ensure the bank and station cameras both caught a good look at them too, without being obvious about it.

‘You want any cash?’ he asked, keeping his head down to ensure nobody could read his lips from the security footage. ‘I suggest enough for at least a month, in case we get separated, because freezing your assets will be top of their checklist in order to drive you to resurface.’

‘I can’t,’ she argued. ‘I can’t even check my account balance without setting off alarm bells with General Garland.’

‘That’s the bonus.’ He grinned, wishing she could see it. ‘Fastest way to hail the cavalry.’

Mira shook her head, determinedly. ‘Her kind of cavalry, I don’t need yet. I already spent a decade with strict rules and security. I told you, the last thing I want is the “safety” of armed guards with real guns on the gate, instead of tasers.’

‘I’m only one set of eyes, Mira. It wouldn’t hurt to have Garland send a team to keep watch on the Hilux. Use it as cheese in a trap. If we’re lucky, our pals the road-ragers will be tenacious enough to backtrack and find it. An ambush, that is.’ He knew General Garland would check it out eventually anyway — the moment her daily report on Mira’s movements made it clear that they’d come to an abrupt halt halfway down a scrubby river bank.

‘You mean, assuming it wasn’t her people who shot at us, while pretending to be Kitching’s people, in the hope of driving me back to her for protection. And yes, my turn to raise my hand for paranoia, but we can’t put it past her. She still wants to keep her big, heavy leash around my neck and call it national security.’

‘A leash works two ways, Mira. Have you ever seen dogs at a beach? A little terrier can pull an iron man off balance if it darts off, unexpectedly.’

‘I’m not ready for that yet. I’ll do it with a measure of pleasure when the time comes, but until then if she gets anywhere near me you’d better stand prepared for bloodshed.’

He didn’t argue, and never would in public. Not with her, at least. He simply entered a withdrawal amount of $106 from her account, using the debit card that she’d refused to accept in the name of her alias, Scarlet Pernel — which the machine rejected immediately as an invalid entry since it could only dispense multiples of ten dollars.

In a subterranean base on the far side of the country, a junior surveillance technician received an automated warning pop-up on the central monitor in his panel of nine.

Occupying only one cubicle in a quiet room of two hundred officers, he usually monitored the financial transactions for a dozen suspected terrorist organisations, but the account for the alias
Scarlet Pernel
had been earmarked for special attention.

‘Red flag!’ he shouted, and craned his head in search of his major.

‘Report,’ came the prompt reply behind him.

‘Look, sir! An attempt has been made to access the funds here, and the PIN was accepted by the ATM, but the amount was rejected locally with no subsequent attempt to withdraw or check the balance. Is that some kind of user code?’ He glanced at a laminated sheet of authorised field agent codes that he kept pinned up on the wall to his left, all of which he knew off by heart already. ‘It’s not on my list.’

‘One-zero-six?’ The major slammed his hand down on the emergency link to General Garland’s mobile command centre.

‘Problem?’ asked Airman Lasso, whose face immediately filled the monitor.

‘You’ve got a one-zero-six on the Pernel account,’ reported the major.

He sent a screenshot of the transaction through, which provided all the details, including precise time
and GPS coordinates, along with live access to the ATM surveillance footage which showed a young dark-haired man and petite blond woman turning to leave.

Below it ran an expanding list of links to at least twenty-seven civilian and government security cameras within a five-block radius, with the whole map enabled as a live feed. The legend made it clear which eleven sites took only still shots or stop-motion with private offline records held locally, and which had live streams to security companies that could be commandeered and remotely controlled under the National Security Act, without their owners or operators ever knowing or being notified.

‘Thank you, Major. Notifying the general, and redirecting an emergency response team now.’ The airman’s screen blackened, terminated from his end.

‘So what’s a one-zero-six?’ asked the technician.