Leopard Dreaming (43 page)

‘And she’s blind. So what? Who are you to stop me?’

‘Benny,’ Gabby whispered. ‘Please?’

Tarin rubbed Ben’s shoulder as if silently pleading with him too, but he patted her hand, apparently accepting her attention as siding with him instead.

‘I’ll tell you who you are,’ Ben fumed, shaking a loose fist at Lockman. ‘You’re the bastard who can’t keep his arse out of an ambush!’

‘Hey, if you hadn’t pushed her so hard trying to change her, she never would have encountered Kitching or his medical scientists in the first place!’

‘Or needed you as a bodyguard. Don’t remind me.’

‘Boys, boys …’ Gabby put her foot in front of Ben’s wheelchair, preventing him from rolling any nearer to Lockman, while slamming Lockman’s chest with her other hand, as if she worried he might stoop to decking a cripple, as appealing as it still seemed just then. He’d almost stopped himself once, without really needing Moser’s help, and since then the anaesthetic in the leg bandage was beginning to kick in.

‘Here.’ Gabby handed him the handset for the ship-to-shore phone. ‘You want to parley with Garland? Arrange it yourself. She didn’t say anything more to me than I already told you. Except maybe those two are supposed to lend any support you need.’ She glanced to Brette and Finnigan and clapped her hands twice. ‘Chop chop. Or do you need a gold-leafed invitation?’

Lockman shook off his frustrations with Ben, scolding himself for letting him get under his skin so easily, and snatched the handset from Gabby. ‘Wish it was that easy,’ he said, and clipped it back in its saddle on the helm. ‘We do need more support, but it’s likely to be compromised unless someone can go ask for it face to face.’

‘We can’t risk calling her again from any of the shipboard communications,’ Sei explained with a more sympathetic tone directed at Ben. ‘Adam’s right on that, I’m afraid. Those two tried to hijack us, so it’s possible they’re not the only ones watching us, especially if Kitching considers the
Limo
a vessel of interest now.’

‘I’ve got a radio in my car,’ Delaney suggested. ‘Should I switch it off, if we can’t trust the voice on the other end?’

‘Best to leave it on,’ Symes said. ‘Leave the unknown enemy wondering if you’re onto them, rather than remove all doubt. If you need someone to hail for help, son, we’ll gladly play messenger.’ He nodded to Moser as he passed by on another round of the outer deck. ‘I wouldn’t mind a peek at the general’s inner sanctum in a way that won’t include stepping on her toes.’

‘Beware the minefield,’ Sei reminded them. ‘Civilian versus military investigations; they’re kissing cousins. Too close, and taboo.’

‘Count me in too.’ Delaney whistled to summon her dog. ‘If that general has brought more trouble to my island, I aim to clean up.’ She headed for the pier with Symes and Moser close on her heel. ‘Coming?’ she called over her shoulder to Gabby. ‘We can stash you somewhere safe until it’s over.’

‘I’m needed here.’ Gabby kept her attention on the helm, peering closer at the screens and scrolling backwards through the radar archives. As the three cops headed astern to disembark, she switched on a pair of monitors, adjusted more controls and rewound local traffic for twelve nautical miles in every direction, over land and sea.

‘I can search wider,’ she explained as Lockman dared to peer over her shoulder.

‘What’s that?’ He pointed to a slow-moving blip that passed by the cove twenty-one minutes beforehand.

‘A whale, but look …’ She scrolled forward enough to identify a second contact that moved out from a little estuary called Crab Creek. It headed for the
Limo
— much slower than the whale.

‘That’s me in your
Seaview Play
.’

‘Oh, oui, and cantankerous again, obviously. Sorry. Top speed is ten times faster. I should have warned you about the little trick with the accelerator. How to baby it by rowing at the same time as motoring.’

‘Go back more,’ Lockman said, edging closer to her.
‘They ambushed us in the forest at least twenty minutes before that. Perhaps as much as an hour, depending on how long it took me to get that far. Scale’s a bit hard to tell from this angle.’

Zooming out for a wider view, Gabby spotted three more blips easily. ‘There, look! This one was lurking around Poacher’s Cove quite a lot this morning. Same size as the
Seaview Play
, roughly, and later, here … these look to be two jet skis coming from the hire group near the Point Lookout Hotel.’ She scrolled forward and back a few more times to be sure they all saw the same suspicious routes and activities.

‘There!’ Lockman stabbed the screen at one blip leaving Crab Creek, shortly followed by two more. Touching the screen caused the instrument to zoom in on it. ‘Can you take it forward again?’

She did, and they saw the three blips rendezvous with a fourth larger blip that somehow managed to sail or swim a straight line through a nearby maze of shallow mangrove islands.

‘What is
that
?’ Lockman asked.

‘Altitude: twenty metres, dropping to sea level.’ Gabby pointed to the corresponding numbers in a long list of other stats down the right-hand side of the screen, including longitude and latitude, which changed as the blip moved away again a few minutes later, regaining altitude. ‘My guess; a helicopter.’

Lockman grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her forehead. ‘You’re brilliant, Gabby. All ashore who can’t be rolled ashore.’

‘Oh, no,’ Ben complained. ‘I told you, I’m on board all the way.’

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Gabby argued. ‘You should be wrapped in cotton wool. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.’

Ben glanced from her to Lockman. ‘You’re siding against me, Gabby? I’m the only one Mira really trusts.’

‘News flash,’ Gabby countered. ‘She trusts Adam.’

‘Be serious, Gab. She loathes all things military. I simply have to be there for her, so either you take me, or I’ll roll out in public and make a spectacle of myself until Kitching comes to get me personally.’

Brett and Finnigan made moves to stay too, but Lockman blocked them. ‘You came for the prisoners, so take them. If they stay in custody, I’ll know whose side you’re really on next time.’

‘You don’t trust us?’ Brette grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘Mate, that cuts me.’

Lockman picked up Patterson and Pobody by the collars and swung them into Brette’s custody. ‘Don’t take it personally, fellas. Right now, I only trust Gabby and Tarin.’ He glanced out at Delaney and the two detectives. ‘You should all go together. Make sure the prisoners are stashed somewhere secure for the duration. Oh, and Detective …’ He called to Symes, opening his wallet and handing over an untouched bundle of notes. ‘She’d want you to have this.’

‘The payment, why? Tell her to keep it. She’s worth every cent.’

‘No leashes. That’s what she really wants. If you do anything more to help her from here on, do it because you want to. Be good cops doing good jobs, so she’ll have two more people in the world she can count on.’

He offered both detectives a handshake, and they accepted, also taking the hint. He didn’t expect to come back alive from this one.

The leopard watched the lynx with cold eyes from his corner of the cargo bay. Two predators trapped by the same hunter in a crowded cage, and cast high into a whirlwind that followed the coastline. He knew more than the rest of them, and yet he also knew he must be only one of three who recognised their destination.

Mira, Mira in the air. Who’s the keeper of the lair?

He knew she’d never realise it was him yet. He’d been away too long, and she kept her eyes clenched, as if she refused to see the truth of it — until thunderous thrumming wings descended with them and he saw her peek at the forest from her childhood.

The canopy rose up to greet them.

Or saner minds might say they lowered to greet it.

Prodigal daughter flying home to the slaughter.

Hovering low over a clearing of wildflowers where a cluster of century-old Moreton Bay figs overlooked the bay, she should have been able to see her grandmother playing as a child, or seen the leopard himself as a youth planting their orchard. Or perhaps even building the crown of seven treehouses that would later be bolstered and linked by rope bridges to become her family home amongst the Poet Trees. He looked so different in those younger days, he doubted she would recognise him at all, even if she did happen to catch a glimpse of him through the trees.

Great boughs in the breeze, brailled with gold poetry.

Yet the mechanical humming-bird didn’t land there. It swooped low over the neighbouring ridge to the far end of the subterranean bunker. To the ruins of a colonial settlement; the one Mira had always referred to as her ghost town.

Through the fog of time, he expected her naked eyes should still perceive it that way. As a thriving bayside village. To the others, it would appear as it did to him, as little more than bulldozed rubble. And yet the fallen cross of the old stone church also marked the hidden entrance to the secret lair.

The derelict military bunker. Extensive underground. Reopened but not yet refurbished, and about as close to General Garland as it was possible to get without having a hand in her underwear.

B
en felt his wheelchair roll backwards and turned to find Tarin behind him, steering him away from the others, behind the drinks bar.

‘You’re bleeding,’ she said, loud enough for Lockman to hear. ‘Let me patch you up from Mr Music’s remarkable first aid kit.’

Ben glanced down his arms and lap, but couldn’t see any wounds leaking obviously enough to worry about. ‘I’m fine, really,’ he protested. ‘You’ve got enough on your plate.’

‘You let me be the judge of that.’

Spinning him to an abrupt halt, she crouched out of sight beside him and dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘What’s the sit-rep with you and Mira Chambers?’

‘The sit-what?’

‘Situation report. Don’t play dumb with me, handsome. I’ve been getting mixed signals.’ She snapped off the lid from a bottle of saline solution so ferociously she made it clear she could make it hurt if she didn’t get a straight answer. ‘You and her … Adam and her … so which is it?’

Ben gulped, swallowing hard as he dropped his eyes to his lap. ‘To be honest, Tarin, I wish I knew. Count
up the hours, and I’ve spent less time with her than I have with you. And he’s …’ Ben shook his head, unable to fathom how Mira could ever have anything more than a slim reliance on Lockman.

‘But she’s the one with a brand on your heart?’

‘I’m loyal to her, if that’s what you’re asking.’

Tarin set aside the saline and stroked his hair.

Twice now she’d called him handsome, and yet he’d seen his reflection. Battered and bruised, swollen up and ugly as sin. Was she mocking him? He turned his face away, sparing himself the shame of having her look at him. A civilian; unable to defend himself.

She turned his cheek back and leaned around, meeting him halfway to look him in the eye anyhow. ‘I’m not talking about loyalty, Ben. Hell, I was there. I know she’s a special friend, but what I need to know is how special?’

‘Why?’ he flared. ‘So you can report it straight to General Garland?’

‘No, you sweet bastard.’ She licked her lips. ‘So I can do this again without feeling guilty.’ Her hand dropped to his chest in time with her lips touching his, and she claimed him in a kiss that swept him away in a flame without pain and made him ache to tear off all the clothes from her body. Yet his fingers curled, unfit even for holding her.

‘I can’t,’ he said, finally summoning enough strength to pull away from her.

Tarin smiled wickedly, holding his gaze and mesmerising him with a dark sparkle in her eye, while her fingernail trailed mischievously lower to his lap and she discovered exactly how much she’d set his desire on fire.

‘You can,’ she whispered seductively. ‘Just as soon as your head figures out what your heart is shouting.’

Mira clamped her hands over her ears, guarding against the screeching whine of invisible rotors and gearboxes. Kitching hefted her out into the small bayside ghost town anyway, and no matter how tightly she gripped her ears, she couldn’t guard against Freddie Leopard’s incessant ranting.

‘Mira, Mira underground. Who’s the one who’s won this round?’

She’d never heard him rattle on like that before. Cycling through all the different voices of his personalities but reciting the same rhymes relentlessly. Round and round in tighter circles in her head like a whirlwind. And in such increasingly frantic tones, as if the words themselves were driving him to the brink of fracturing into another personality. She could sense the intensity of the place herself; brought back to her childhood home, as if she’d never escape the cycles going on in her life. And yet Lockman’s old warnings against coincidence kept coming back to her.

‘Keep them close,’ Kitching shouted.

Mira heard the movements of other people; at least a dozen who’d marched out through crunchy leaf litter to greet them. Kitching kept a tight hold on her by himself, shielding her eyes from flying sand and twigs as the chopper flew off again. Nothing tender about his way with her. He gripped her by the hair, turning her face against his chest. His arm shielded most of her shoulders too, but her bare skin on her arms and legs stung from the tiny debris, while the main street of the town seemed obscenely quiet in comparison.

Sunday-morning quiet.

A ghostly dog wandered out of the alley between Freeman’s blacksmith shop and the general store. It paused to sniff the air in the direction of the hide-maker’s cabin, but the latest skins were already tanned and strung up out of reach, drying, while the freshest were still soaking in great ghostly barrels of pickling
salt and vinegar. First one, then the other. Mira had watched the whole process so many times as a child, she’d tried it herself with the skin from a dead rabbit to make a mitt to protect her hand while weeding the vegetable garden. Spiders, centipedes and bush scorpions could sting worse than a wasp, and living alone after losing her parents, she’d been frightened to risk an injury, but the tanned mitt worked so well she’d taken to tanning hides from every dead wild animal she’d come across. She’d trapped a possum once to eat too, but couldn’t bring herself to kill it.

The colonial rock wharf to her left had been extended out into the bay since she’d last seen it, while for the moment the steam dredge sat idle in its moorings with no chain gangs to work it. The school house doors appeared closed, and yet the building itself should not be standing at all. She’d witnessed it burned to the ground soon after her parents had both taken their own lives. The whole street had been razed to the ground in a bush fire.

Replacement buildings looked similar in shape and size, though most of them had been rebuilt in stone, and she had to remind herself that with her naked eyes, everything was still over a century old, even though they all appeared to be new. By now, in real time, they must surely look like derelict ruins, little more than piles of rubble.

Kitching took her by the hand and led her through the ghostly stone wall of the school house. A squad of his invisible men marched off noisily towards the pier, while others spread out in opposite directions until their sounds dissolved all around her into the forest.

Kitching led her through a ghostly row of timber desks with ink wells and nib pens for dipping, past the small chalk boards mounted waist-high on a set of timber A-frames. On one side, she saw a row of simple addition sums awaiting solutions, and as she passed it
by, she saw a list of the week’s spelling words on the other side of the A-frame.

Sparing a thought for the students, she wondered who’d replaced old Mr Roach as the teacher after he’d died fighting flames with two of his students: Ethan, the school’s best cricketer, and Jacob, who’d whispered to bullocks and horses. Remembering them made her twinge with bittersweet memories. They’d never seen her attending their classes, nor heard her whispering answers to them during their history exams; never known of her crush on Jacob Green, or that she’d placed fresh posies of wildflowers on his grave every day until invisible orphanage staff came to drag her away to “civilisation.”

Stumbling over stones and soil that kicked up dust around her legs and smelled like ploughed earth, Mira struggled not to rely on Kitching’s hand for balance. Yet he led her over such uneven ground at times that she had to cling to his arm or risk falling and having him carry her again. Behind her, she heard someone else stumble too.

‘I hate to break the news,’ Sanchez called, ‘but I think your hideout is hiding.’

‘You should have warned me,’ Lina agreed. ‘I would have worn flats instead of heels.’

‘A little faith, ladies.’ Kitching tugged Mira uphill towards the stone church, where the road appeared to be clear and smooth but invisible grass and branches scraped her legs as if the mild slope at the base of the rocky ridge had regrown as forest too.

Ahead, she saw a dozen ghostly horses, all saddled but dozing in the shade of trees where they’d each been tethered over a century ago. A row of farm wagons waited nearby at a fence of hitching rails, amongst them, the mayor’s sulky and two ghostly boys who crept about, making mischief. As Kitching led her nearer, Mira saw them detach the spotted gelding, feed
his shafts through the fence and hitch him up again from the other side. A common prank. She’d seen it more often near the local tavern where drunken farm-wagon drivers were less likely to notice until after they’d whipped their horse or bullocks into tearing down the fence or tethering rails.

At the church, she heard Kitching’s stride change, as if raising his leg higher to climb the three small timber steps, and she did too, but her foot passed through the step. Gone now. She tripped her shin against an invisible rocky outcrop instead.

‘Rubble from the steeple,’ Kitching said as he lifted her over it. ‘Stay close to me as we go in.’ He set her down again like eggs, but as he led her down the aisle of the church, hip-deep through the ghostly timber floor that no longer existed, the air temperature dropped, rose and dropped again as if they were passing under a damaged roof that let the sun shine through in large leafy patches.

Either side of her in the ghostly pews, she saw the bowed faces of townsfolk she hadn’t seen in a decade. Doc MacFarlane thinner and greyer. Lukey’s mother Gwen with a new toddler playing between her legs with a whittled spinning top. And Jacob’s half-sister Etti; an Aboriginal islander girl, same age as Mira, but all grown up now and nursing her own baby. Mira baulked when she saw the man who sat with his arm around Etti. Aside from his beard, the handsome blacksmith, Adam Freeman, looked a dead ringer for Lockman.

Kitching tugged her hand again, not stopping at Father McEwan’s pulpit. She tried to pause long enough to genuflect out of respect for her ghostly townspeople, who’d taught her by example, but when she dug in her heels, Kitching only wrenched her through the altar.

Beyond the rear wall of the church, he stopped briefly at the short rock face, where metal clanked,
rattled and groaned as if a pair of great doors slid open.

Freddie fell eerily silent, but she could still hear him echoing inside her head.

Mira, Mira underground. Who’s the one who’s won this round?

She shuddered with dread at the sight of the ghostly cliff face, and then came the inevitable tug on her hand, but she planted her feet and refused to be pulled into it. ‘No, please, I can’t! Not into solid rock! I can’t breathe in it!’ She struggled against him, leaning away from him with all her strength, while behind her, she heard Lina Creed struggling with a similar protest.

‘It’s too dark! Oh, no, please! Hasn’t anyone brought a torch or a lantern?’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ Kitching said, tugging harder on Mira’s wrist. ‘It only looks solid to you. Reach out and feel for yourself.’ He didn’t give her a chance though, using his greater strength to wrench her off balance and her hand to slap on a light switch, also silencing Lina’s loudest protests.

Mira clamped her eyes shut, unable to open them again without her mind triggering a choking response from the illusion of having to breathe rock. The floor trembled more than her own legs, and she froze in fear of falling. ‘What is this place?’

‘Supply elevator. More like a platform really. Funding ran out during refurbishment, so don’t fight me again or you could fall a few storeys.’

‘No railings,’ Sanchez whispered behind her. ‘He’s not lying there, honey. Don’t move your foot, or your heel will slip right off the edge, and it’s a long way down. At least four storeys.’

Mira shuddered again, recalling the size of the coin-slot in Kevin Stoush’s head after he kissed the pavement. Behind her, the other two women slid into an awkward silence. After the initial jerk to get it moving, Mira
braced herself for a downward movement. The floor rose instead. Her knees buckled, Kitching caught her against his side and her eyes flicked open in reflex.

Ghostly rock encased her and she gagged, trying to get her mind and body to agree she could breathe the dusty air easily enough. The pseudo motion of passing up through the fossilised ribcage of a bear-sized wombat and out through its pelvis caused a panic attack as claustrophobia and her fear of heights all hit her at once. Clamping her eyes shut again, she tried to remind herself that none of this could be real any more. It must have been cut away, in part at least, to make space for the elevator shaft.

Convincing her traitorous reflexes always took a few seconds longer. She chewed on her lip, hating that she could reveal her weaknesses so easily, especially when she really needed to be at the top of her game in order to liberate Matron Sanchez. Being hugged against Kitching, and needing him for support, made her feel as helpless and useless as she’d ever been as a blind orphan.

She started shivering uncontrollably.

Kitching gripped her by the arms and shook her like a rag doll. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘Leave her alone,’ Sanchez pleaded. ‘It’s just a panic attack.’ She shouldered between Mira and Kitching, and dropped her voice to a more soothing tone. ‘Deep breaths, Mira. I heard him tell his men he only needs you for one more mission, so we’ll be out of here soon, honey. Promise.’

It sounded almost funny. She cried out, and it worked. Mira caught her breath and somehow managed to keep her stomach down. ‘I thought I was here rescuing
you
.’ She tried to smile but couldn’t.

‘Give her the glasses,’ Sanchez said, but Kitching only laughed, shoved the matron aside and hugged Mira tighter against him. ‘I prefer her like this, with her depending on me to find her way out again.’

‘Prodigal daughter flying home to the slaughter,’ Fredarick mumbled.

‘Shut up!’ Mira shouted. ‘I get it! You win, I lose. It’s only a matter of time now before I’m worm food!’

‘Not necessarily.’ Kitching kept his cold arm around her, making her feel more uncomfortable. ‘I’m still prepared to hold my end of the bargain and let you go, so long as you give me something in return, Miss Chambers.’

‘And what’s that?’ Sanchez asked, beating Mira to the same question.

‘None of your business any more, Matron. You’re no longer her guardian, and now is hardly the time to discuss it anyway.’