Leopard Dreaming (34 page)

‘Fine, so they fetched him back to the mainland,’ Mira conceded. ‘I can track him anywhere there too, if that’s what it takes.’

‘Not with Garland in town,’ Lockman argued. ‘She’s got eyes on every route and access point on or
off the island, so unless you want to risk being taken into custody for safekeeping until this is over, there’s only one destination for you, and only one safe route to get there.’

‘My dinghy,’ Gabby said. ‘Assuming that’s why you asked about my
Seaview Play
earlier?’

‘Exactly,’ Lockman said. ‘Tell me where it is, please, because I need you take that headset well away from us.’

‘What if I hook it to the back of a goanna? You’ll need me out there. Those waters across the bar can be treacherous at the turn of the tide, and that’s without all the sharks.’

‘Sorry,’ Lockman said, ending the argument. ‘If you’re up for that kind of action, there may be something else you could do for us. Assuming you can ride a road bike?’

‘I’m not licensed, but I’m a flying fish on a jet ski. How different can that be?’

Mira stamped her foot, wishing they’d both listen to her. ‘Don’t you dare, Gabby! Take your dinghy and your sloop and sail well away from here! Be safe, or you’ll drive me crazier with worry!’

‘Or take my Blackbird,’ Lockman said, fishing the key out of his pocket and handing it over with a soft swish and
chink
. ‘Go easy on the corners. If you hit sand or gravel, it can slide out worse than a jet ski. Helmets are in our room at the resort with a full set of leathers, so here’s that key too. Tuck your hair up so they won’t know you from Mira, and ride like it’s stolen, okay? The more cops and covert military police you can attract the better.’

‘As if anyone would believe it’s me riding,’ Mira argued.

‘Only a fool would underestimate you,’ Lockman countered.

‘Oh, you mean ride it on the road?’ Gabby gulped. ‘I can’t afford points off my licence, Adam. My boss
would love that excuse to deny me the position of skipper of the new
Edu-kitty
at the last minute.’

‘You’ll be fine, Gabby. It’s for national security, so General Garland will make the charges disappear.’

‘She must have some limits, surely?’

‘If she does, it’ll be news to her. So take off for a joy ride somewhere, and attract as many as you can for as long as possible, if you can.’

‘Please, no!’ Mira argued. ‘What happens to her, if it’s not any cops or soldiers who catch up to her? What if it’s those guys who took pot shots at us? Or worse, if she gets caught in any crossfire?’

‘You said it yourself, Mira. There’s nothing we can plan that isn’t a risk.’

‘They’ve had a whole week to plan ahead and take action for every conceivable possibility!’

‘All the more reason to stick with your first reaction. Arrange surprises they can’t hear coming. So long as we make it to the rendezvous, they don’t seem to care what else we do.’

‘And so long as I look like her, I’m safe, oui?’

‘Let’s just say there’ll be more people trying to ensure your safety than anyone trying to hurt you, Gabby. That’s the best I can promise.’

‘Good enough for me.’

‘Gabby!’ Mira complained. ‘Please, just find a quiet hole and be safe!’

‘With Ben missing again, and you two on a case? I don’t need to know all the details, cherie. I only need to know the universe rewards me every time I do the right thing. Only nobody will believe I’m you, unless I’m also carrying the one little thing you’d never let go.’

Mira clutched the wallaby pouch, just as the joey wriggled again.

‘Who better to care for her while you’re at sea?’ Gabby asked, ‘I may be suspended, more or less, but I’m still a ranger for National Parks and Wildlife.’

Mira opened her mouth to argue, and yet the joey certainly would be safer and less stressed if she could hang in a dark, quiet place for a while — even if it was only hugged against Gabby’s side with the long constant drone of a motorbike.

Reluctantly, she handed over the shoulder bag, taking a moment to reach in for a quick pat, and Pockets responded by latching onto her hand with both paws and suckling her thumb. When milk failed to flow, she latched on harder and chewed.

‘She’s cranky,’ Mira said, handing over the pouch finally. ‘She’s been sleeping quite well against me, until now.’

‘You’re stressed,’ Lockman said. ‘And she can tell. The sooner we part company the better for everybody. Where’s your dinghy, Gabby? Just point the way.’

‘Follow that trail half a click; you’ll come to a creek. Follow the flow towards the mouth until you come to an isle of mangroves shaped like a horseshoe, and you’ll find the
Seaview Play
beached in the middle. Hard to see until you’re in there. Has to be, when I’m out jogging, or someone else could make off with it. There’s a thick palm tree fallen into the water that runs right out to it like a bridge. You won’t even get your feet wet.’

‘Thanks, Gabby,’ Lockman said, and Mira heard a brief kiss. ‘You’re a pearl.’

Gabby grabbed Mira, and kissed her cheek too. ‘That’s for luck, you two. Here’s hoping you won’t need it.’

Lasso watched the blip on his satellite screen, unable to see Lockman or the target through the forest canopy, although the information he’d received days beforehand had been right in every detail. The ex-lieutenant had been to the beach house and left with an army headset, so he had no reason to doubt that the
blind girl was headed with him towards the mouth of Crab Creek.

It didn’t surprise him that the headset turned inland instead. He knew all about the girl’s phobia with surveillance and Lockman’s creativity in dodging it. No doubt the headset was strapped to the neck of that hopping rat by now, which probably also explained why their fortune-telling asset had mentioned they wouldn’t have the animal with them by the time they tried to cross the creek, over a fallen tree half a kilometre north of their current position. With or without the marsupial made no difference to him; just a slight glitch in his expectations if they did happen to have it. It would drown easily enough.

He checked his watch and switched screens in time to provide Garland with another false update; this time reporting movement inside the hotel room in order to maintain the pretence that the hotel was still the scheduled rendezvous point for the colonel and Mira Chambers. Then he tapped the nib of his electronic pen, and sent a coded message to Commander Kurst, aboard the Delta III.

One code number only required: 3, to signify mission go. And finally he redirected Garland’s alpha team, ensuring they’d make it to the estuary in time to meet Kurst’s team of fishermen.

A pity the general would never be able to appreciate the full extent of his skills. In a way, he was protecting her too. Keeping her nose out of it. She had no authority to conduct such grand missions on an international scale. To her it still seemed like a small domestic issue, but he couldn’t help a twinge of guilt at how she’d feel if she ever learned that her alpha team was really working for him.

The sea leopard curled on his bunk, kneading the bed sheets and watching his prey with cold narrowed eyes.
Deaf by birth, mute by choice, he didn’t need to hear all that his sweet mistress had said since returning from her slim metal cage. He knew only that she smelled of fear, and that her blood now pulsed with rising panic in the delicate thread of the vein that ran from her throat to her ear.

The prey shouted at her again, mouthing great silent threats at her which made his own blood race a primal beat, while the echoes of their argument rippled to silence. But the leopard maintained his restraint and did not leap to defend her just yet. There remained a broad body of water between her and safety, and so he sheathed his claws and gnawed at his paw, drawing amusement from the fact that at least she could enrage their captor so much merely by retelling a tale from Braille as she caressed a small pile of embossed papers. Did the colonel not yet understand that their futures had been doctored by the sage? No escaping it.

The quarry shook that wretched toy at her — a shiny bent bone — and caused her to cry again, her tears searing like droplets of acid into the leopard’s hide, and still the scarred beast curled tighter and suffered in silence, feeding his lust for blood with more rage and resentment.

Time now stood as the only barrier to his feast. He would rip the heart from his prey and offer it, still beating, to his sweet beloved — just as soon as the sage finished playing his game and let him loose from his chain.

A second mariner burst in.
Chopper’s here, sir,
he mouthed and the beast sat upright, knowing the time had come to change his spots again. From sea leopard to leopard hawk of the air.

B
en’s thoughts strayed to Tarin again. He couldn’t help it. He doubted she’d need a man to console her during recovery, but did she have one? A jolt made him look up from his lap in time to see branches slapping and scraping down both sides of the police landcruiser — veering off the road and through a drainage ditch. No sign of a track ahead, aside from a strip of scrubby vegetation. Much shorter than surrounding forest.

Ahead, through the windscreen, he saw a rusted sign for the Department of National Parks and Wildlife, warning
Trespassers will be prosecuted
past that point. Or over it, in Sergeant Delaney’s case. The corner of the bullbar clipped it, sending it down under her left wheel with a heavy clunk.

Using his elbow, Ben rapped on the window between them. ‘Driving skills haven’t improved much since you were ten?’

The only attention he attracted came as a growl from the Shih Tzu, which perched on a canvas cushion on the front passenger seat, in a harness that also secured him with the seatbelt. The bullbar rammed headlong into the next thicket of scrub, which buckled
and fell under the vehicle. Mowing it down made Ben rock and jolt all the more, and sent shooting pains up his legs and arms.

‘Hey, you promised a smooth ride!’ he shouted to Delaney through a slot in the bullet-resistant glass. ‘Don’t make me come up there!’ He tried not to sound too worried, even though his pulse raced a marathon.

‘Change of plans, sorry! If I don’t keep up the speed, we could end up in
real
trouble.’

‘You mean more than I am already?’

She laughed and accelerated up a small bushy dune. ‘Trust me, Benny. You don’t want to be stuck anywhere in the open today. From what I’ve heard, there’s some real nasties coming to town, and some huge heavies on their way to clean them out.’

‘And yet you took the day off?’ He could hardly believe it. ‘Bite her, Bam Bam. She’s an imposter!’

‘Not my first choice. You know it.’

He clung to the chair as best he could as the vehicle crested and lurched down the other side of the scrubby dune. Then ahead, through the trees, he caught a glimpse of a small inlet. ‘Oh, and Poacher’s Cove is safer? Are you kidding me, Cassie?’

‘Hey, I wish I knew the details too, okay? Give me a break.’

‘Sounds like someone’s finally found a way to yank your strings.’

‘Aside from you?’ she chuckled. ‘Don’t ask. If I’m not authorised to know, then you certainly aren’t.’

‘Oh, I get it.’ He only wished he didn’t. Police weren’t the only government heavies who’d taken an interest in him. ‘Who is it? Defence or your own HQ?’

‘Defence?’ She laughed. ‘You must be overdue for your meds again. I’m way too low in the chain to tangle with any of them.’

‘I’ll bet you a crate of the best dog food that you’re already dancing to a military tune.’

‘I’ll take that bet. I’ve only got one puppeteer who can make me dance, as you’ve obviously guessed, and that’s Officer Bam Bam. Without him, I’m practically alone over here.’

She patted the dog’s head, and the dog barked as if agreeing — and yet the fluffy rag also managed to keep its eyes on Ben, as if the concept of a caged human amused him.

Staring back at the long-haired mutt, Ben noticed the sparkly blur of eleven commendation stars on the collar, ironically pinned either side of a silver charm, which he recalled to be a Fox-trotting Unicorn — Cassie’s personal ‘Fist Up’ gesture to those of her superior officers who objected to her using a personal pet for duty purposes.

It struck him that the animal was far more than a pet to her. He’d become the partner she’d needed every time she’d called for backup from the mainland and been let down by either budget constraints, timing or logistics. She had too much desk work to qualify for a real police dog, and too small a population, aside from school holidays, to warrant an extra full-time constable.

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Delaney said, keeping a wary eye on him in her rear view mirror. ‘I don’t usually give a shit what anyone thinks of him as my partner. I need him, so if I need to back off the streets for a day when the big badges start threatening to have him banned from government property, I back off. Okay? What else am I supposed to do? My cottage is attached to the watch house, so I don’t just work on government property, I live on it.’

Ben held up his hands in defence. ‘Hey, don’t bite me! I love dogs. I just never expected anything to come between you and your job.’

‘I’m here aren’t I? And until you blundered out in the open, I was headed for the beach so I’d have an
excuse to get and stay close to the thick of it — while I’m refuelling my car, my stomach and surf supplies, if you get what I mean. I could have spent more time in town than out surfing.’

Ben opened his mouth to argue, but couldn’t — something Mira often did, and somehow managed to make look adorable, while he felt more like a beached fish, gulping.

Lurching over another wave of overgrown sand dunes and getting air at the crest of each didn’t help either. He couldn’t shake the rotten feeling in his gut. ‘There’s better tracks for off-roading, Cassie — a fire trail further west of here and a few hikers’ tracks to the east. They all lead down to the cove too, since that’s obviously where you’re headed.’

‘And spend another half hour with your cheery face in my mirror? Oh, yeah. That’s appealing.’

A white flash through the trees ahead caught his eye, and he rapped urgently on the window using his elbow to attract her attention to it.

‘What’s that?’ He could catch only blurry glimpses of a hull at the old pier, leaving his imagination to fill in the rest. ‘A cargo ship?’ It couldn’t be the one he feared. The
Sea Snake
had been reduced to charred fragments scattered on the floor of Moreton Bay, but the memory struck him so hard he broke into a cold sweat.

‘If it is, it’s the fanciest cargo ship I’ve ever seen.’ Bursting through the next clump of scrub allowed them a full view of it finally. ‘Whoa, Benny! Somebody thinks well of you if that’s what HQ sent to take care of you.’

He recognised it as a luxury cruiser now too. Not quite as big as the cargo ship that Kitching had been using as a ferry for his money laundering, but three times the size of the sailing yachts used by his captors to transport him out to it, and yet this one did seem
big and posh enough to function as a mother ship for Kitching’s fleet.

The idea stung him with panic. ‘Hoo, no, no!’ He rapped urgently on the window with both elbows, ignoring the jolts of pain to his wrists, which also shot up his arms to his shoulders. ‘Back up, Cassie! We need to get out of here!’

‘Relax, Benny. They’re the good guys. Can you see those two suits? They’re federal detectives, and that scary little one is my Uncle Syd. You should remember him from when we were kids.’

Slimy Symes? Ben only knew he’d spent so long working undercover with criminals he’d begun to look and talk like one, so Ben peered ahead, trying to focus and check for himself. He still only remembered her uncle vaguely, since most of her family had moved to the mainland while she’d still been in primary school. In any case, all he could see on deck was a jet boat and three or four blurry human shapes pacing back and forth, looking far too much like an armed patrol, guarding the deck. ‘Who else is here?’

In reply, the vehicle skidded to a halt in the sand and the temperature inside plummeted under the umbrella of a huge Moreton Bay fig tree.

He heard Delaney cut the engine and bound around to the rear door of her Landcruiser, which she flung open to let down the ramp. ‘Come and see for yourself.’

‘Do I have a choice?’ He could only scowl at her as she uncuffed his wheelchair — until he noticed a woman appear on deck, unmistakable with her blond hair and white sundress. He filled his lungs to call her name, ignoring the pain, and shouted as loud as he could manage. ‘Hey, Mira!’ Coughing, it took him another minute to rest his battered ribs.

Delaney rolled him down into the speckled shade, giving him room to wave and call again, and this time,
to his great relief, Mira came to the rail of the sleek yacht and waved back to him.

Trudging along silently behind Lockman, Mira wasn’t sure which hurt the most: her head or her legs — sharp piercing eyestrain or burning muscular aches. As her head began to win the debate, she realised it was only because Lockman had slowed their pace. For her sake, obviously. She had no doubt he could run all day if he chose to, probably without puffing, which also made her envy him.

Attuned to the soft sounds of his movements, she’d kept up with him so far through the scrubby undergrowth without needing to be led by the hand, which gave her some small sense of achievement. He offered to help anyway as they neared the next fallen tree, and she reluctantly accepted — but only after her dress hooked and she had no way of seeing the snag unless she stayed stuck for another day.

‘So …
Jason
,’ she said, broaching the smouldering subject. Part of her wanted to hate him for it; another secret. Yet her own true identity had remained hidden most of her life, even from herself. ‘Is that another codename?’

‘All names stand for something; like a label on a jar. Growing up blind, you’ve learned to judge the contents without seeing the label, so what does it really matter?’

‘You’re only hedging now, trying to keep me safe. And your sisters too, obviously. But we’re here searching for Ben and Maddy; they’re living proof that strategy doesn’t work.’

‘It’s Jayson … with a
y,
’ he conceded. ‘Most spell it without. You know the old saying.’

‘Actually, I don’t.’

‘Oh, it’s old. July, August, September, October, November — spells Jason for any mother who can’t be sure when she fell pregnant.’

Mira grinned. ‘So why the
y
?’

‘That’s the question she asked when my father warned her to keep his name off my birth certificate. According to that document, I’m
father unknown
.’

‘So … Jayson, with the built-in mystery question … if you had a wife, what would her surname be, legally and officially?’

He stopped, and turned back to her. ‘Anything she wanted it to be.’

Mira gulped, realising she’d implied something that she hadn’t consciously intended. ‘I mean, traditionally speaking?’

‘Hypothetically?’ He helped her over another fallen trunk; broad and mossy, and she could tell by the extent of ghostly decay that it had been down for many decades. ‘In a honeymoon suite, the card on the champagne might need to say
Mr & Mrs MacLeod
.’

‘MacLeod? Where does that come from? Why not Freeman or Lockman?’

‘MacLeod is the last lawful change I had under the witness protection program. My older sister, Helen, has changed her name since then too, on her marriage certificate, but my younger sister, Kirby, still goes by it.’

Mira MacLeod
. The name popped into her head unbidden and she realised that anyone reading her lips might mistake it for
Mira, my cloud
.

Moss transferred to her dress as she crossed another fallen tree, and she loved it. The smell, the feel. After so long in sterile facilities, the earthiness of the forest came as a relief, offering a strong sense of the freedom and untamed life that she’d desired for so long.

‘Next time I ask for a hotel, shoot me,’ she said, breaking the tense silence which had stretched between them. ‘I want to live out here under the sky for the rest of my life.’

He chuckled. ‘You say that now, but wait until winter or the wet season.’

‘Oh, yes please. I’ve never seen a storm with hail.’

‘Not even as a kid?’

Mira shook her head, then realised he might not have noticed, since he was ahead, ensuring her way was clear of any minor tripping hazards. ‘My parents may have been crazy, but they were very protective of me.’ That made her think about her childhood home in a crown of treehouses overlooking the bay; trees her mother had embossed with golden studs on the branches to make Braille poetry and famous quotes which still comforted her when she recalled them in her darkest hours.

‘First sign of any storm, my father would take us over the hill to the ghost town, or we’d shelter underground in the old World War Two bunker, because he was scared all the pretty metal Braille embossed on my mum’s trees would attract lightning.’

‘Ghost town?’

‘My kind of ghosts. Not the supernatural variety. All colonials. Of course, I didn’t realise that at the time.’ Seemed like only yesterday that she’d discovered the filtering benefit of wearing shades. ‘They only started appearing when my normal sight began to change between my eighth and twelfth birthdays, so I just assumed it was a real ghost town. I spent hours there every day. Got to know everyone. I even went to school there, alone. Like you said, Braille books couldn’t teach me everything, and I couldn’t stay at normal school after I started seeing things.’

‘That must have been scary.’

‘At first it sure was. Two of the ghostly men used to beat their wives quite terribly. One was a child molester, and several of the businessmen used to gather to conduct lewd rituals with young girls in the cellar below the church. Didn’t take me long to realise they couldn’t hurt me. It seemed like I was the invisible ghost in their world. Except I think maybe my mother saw them too.
Same problem as me, I think. She took me to church in the ruins every Sunday and she seemed to know when to pray, sing or listen, more or less. And Papa told me stories from his own childhood that made the place come alive. After he died, I learned how to survive from watching the other kids learn to fish, hunt small game and grow vegetables. For a while, I even picked up their older style of speech and mannerisms. But all that wore away when I stopped speaking at the first orphanage. Nobody ever believed what I had to say, so I gave up speaking at all for nearly three years. I spent my time with the more miserable ghosts at the city orphanages, or with my eyes closed trying to imagine my ghosts at home, still living out their lives. If that makes sense.’

‘Sounds like you mourned the loss of them as a second family.’