Leopard Dreaming (37 page)

‘
Against
the Japanese scientific fleet. I didn’t come to argue world politics, son. Everyone knows the oil reserves of the desert countries are drying up and eyes are shifting to the resource-rich atolls of the Pacific. I’m also well aware that Japan’s no angel historically either. I’m only saying the island communities are freer under modern Japan, and that world peace is dependent on superior weaponry getting into and staying in the hands of those who believe most strongly in human rights, regardless of race.’

Mira gaped, astounded. ‘Oh, you are
not
trying to convince me that
you’re
the good guys in all this?’

‘Desperate times call for desperate measures, ma’am. On your feet, please, and hand me that weapon.’

‘What about
my
human rights? My freedom?’

‘Don’t rile him,’ Lockman warned, and peeled her fingers away to surrender the Glock himself, butt first. ‘They’re drafting you, and they can justify anything so long as they believe they’re in the right.’

‘Bite me,’ Patterson barked. ‘If the UN doesn’t wake up in time, you’ll be called to arms over this too, son, and you’ll be on this side of the barrel alongside me. Fighting side by side, or even commanding me.’

‘But since you’re not,’ Pobody said with a grin, ‘you get to hug a tree.’ He stepped up to Lockman cautiously. ‘You keep a knife holster above your ankle, if memory serves. Toss it this way. Thumb and small fingers only. Then stand up. Hands behind you.’

Lockman complied, cautiously, for Mira’s sake.

‘Bag too.’ Pobody reached for it, keeping safely at arm’s length. ‘Whoa, heavy! What have you got in this?’

Lockman caught his breath as the zip opened — only briefly, so he felt sure that Pobody couldn’t have seen the small jamming device in the bottom. Just the standard military survival kit, spare clips for his Glock, a med kit and a fist-thick bundle of cable ties.

Pobody hooked the backpack over his shoulder and began to turn, until Lockman grabbed him, lightning fast.

‘If you hurt her,’ he warned in a low menacing tone, ‘I’ll gut you for shark bait.’

‘Ha!’ Pobody patted the tree. ‘That’ll be a good trick. You’re about to be rooted here.’

‘And whatever job you need her for is peanuts compared to ours.’ Patterson slapped his own neck and inspected his hand. ‘Be grateful we’re leaving you against a tree, and not bellied down with the sand flies and spiders. Nipping little bastards. Tie him up tight, Jo. You know his reputation as The Locksmith.’

‘Hence the cable ties, not handcuffs.’ Pobody nosed the muzzle of his MP5 into Lockman’s ribs and encouraged him to shift back against the tree. ‘Arms back too,’ he ordered, and fastened his wrists up tight. ‘When I said hug, I never mentioned you’d be comfortable.’

‘Can’t you just punch him out?’ Mira complained. ‘How much head start do you need?’

‘About this.’ Pobody grabbed his switchblade and drove it hilt-deep into Lockman’s thigh, making him scream.

‘Stop!’ Mira shouted. ‘What are you doing?’

Through waves of pain, Lockman saw Pobody grab her arm. She spun into a tighter hold, grappling to find his head and wrench it down to her knee, just as Lockman had taught her, but Pobody countered every move she tried and finally wrestled her into submission.

‘Relax, it’s barely a snick,’ Patterson lied, and yet he winced at the sight of the buried knife, as if he’d felt it too. Or not expected Pobody to be that cruel to someone who’d been one of their own. ‘He won’t bleed out, so long as you come away now. As a token of good faith, I’ll even let you call for an ambulance.’

‘What good is that, if they can’t find him in all this forest?’

‘Then I’ll also leave him with a GPS transmitter. It’ll still take them thirty minutes or more to get in here, but it’s better than nothing … Satisfied?’

Mira spat in his general direction. ‘For all I know you’d place the call to Kitching as a signal to send someone else to kill him.’

Lockman gritted his teeth, testing the strength of the cable ties, and judging them to be the strongest available.

‘Forget it then.’ Patterson clicked his fingers twice at his lapdog. ‘Give her to me, Jo, and go de-cloak the jet
skis. Let’s see if we can’t beat our friends to the next rendezvous.’

‘Wait, look at this,’ Pobody said as he jogged past Lockman’s tree. ‘Cheeky bastard’s already working his wrists.’

‘I’ve got him.’ Patterson took an army knife from his hip and trimmed the long loose ends of the ties so Lockman couldn’t use them as shims on the locking mechanisms. ‘Sorry, son,’ he said, also confronting him with a tightening fist. ‘But we need more time than you’re willing to give us.’

And the last Lockman saw was a fist.

B
en sprawled lengthwise down a long white leather sofa inside the
Liquid Limo
, convinced he must be dreaming. Over him hovered the beautiful woman who’d been assigned to pose as Mira; if he’d heard correctly.

‘He’s coming round,’ she said to someone else. Then leaning closer to him in her pretty white sundress and blond wig she called his name. He regained proper focus but couldn’t take his eyes off her. The last time he’d seen Tarin Sei, she’d been brunette, stripped down to her camo trousers and sports bra, and beaten almost as badly as him.

As one of Mira’s bodyguards at the time, Corporal Sei knew even less about Mira than he did, so she had nothing of benefit to offer their captors, aside from her body. And how she’d used it had brought tears to his eyes. She’d fought like a wildcat trying to save him, and in many ways she’d come away from their ordeal far worse off than him. His voice croaked as he tried to apologise.

Her losing her right hand to a machine gun had been so gruesomely traumatic, even for him, he still couldn’t sleep without reliving it. They’d also burned her neck and forehead with cigarettes, leaving a dotted
vine pattern of small circular scars, while trying to convince her to submit to them willingly in the vilest of ways. He’d screamed himself hoarse, trying to draw their attention away from her, but the only way he could have distracted them successfully was to betray Mira’s secret.

He hadn’t been able to do that, and not only for Mira’s sake. He knew they would have killed him and Tarin the moment they outlived their usefulness. Tarin had also ordered him to resist and survive no matter what they did to her, but the memory of her screams tore his guts to shreds. He heard them all over again, as he noticed she kept her bandaged stump tucked out of sight inside a pretty lace shawl.

‘Hey there, sleepy.’ She smiled as she pushed a needle of morphine into his arm. ‘How are you?’

He blinked a few times, too stunned to sit up. ‘How are
you
?’ She’d delivered the painkiller deftly, one-handed, from her personal med kit. Standard field issue. And, foggily, it seemed far more important that she keep her painkillers for herself. ‘Has it only been a week?’

She nodded and stroked his forehead with a light touch that made him feel like he was floating above all the horror of their last day together.

‘I can’t believe you’re not in hospital.’ He glanced at her hidden arm where it disappeared into the lace shawl, but her smile drew his attention back up to her face. ‘You’re one hell of a survivior, soldier.’

‘I could say the same thing about you.’ She planted a passionate kiss on him so unexpectedly that she stole his breath away and shot his temperature up through the roof. ‘Thank you.’

‘What for?’ he asked, stunned and struck by a desperate urge to grab her and kiss her back.

‘You stood up for me, you sweet bastard. Beaten, but never broken, you stood up for me when you should have been conserving your own strength.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ He blushed. ‘The way I remember it, there was only you standing up to those mongrels alone.’

‘Then it’s about time we planted a new memory.’ She kissed him again; slowly, deeply, and stirring him up so much he felt alive in a way he’d never felt before. Not even with sweet, innocent Mira, and that thought slugged him hard with embarrassment and guilt.

‘A pity you’re already spoken for,’ Tarin whispered. Her fingers trailed lightly over his chest, igniting fresh sparks of desire like electricity.

‘Ahem,’ Delaney said, interrupting them with a fake clearing of her throat. ‘You two need any privacy?’

Behind Delaney, her Uncle Symes leaned forward with two other men, as if to see what they’d missed. One slothish in appearance and the other clad in tattoos and tight black leather pants.

‘He’s a therapist,’ Sei said, unintimidated. ‘I was only checking on the chance of an appointment next week.’

Ben shook his head. ‘I’m just a social worker, sorry. And not even that any more. I blew my chance with Mira, so I need to watch every step just to stay as her guardian.’

‘I heard she’d earned a whole new identity?’ Sei asked.

‘No gift from Garland ever comes without strings attached. When Mira earns her independence, finally, she’ll do it our way, so it’s permanent.’

‘I hope she knows how loyal you are.’ Sei leaned aside to grab a pillow for his head. ‘I’ve never known a civilian with your kind of guts before. If you weren’t such a sweet bastard, I’d have to kick the living shit out of you and roll you straight off our game field.’

‘Get in line behind
her
.’ He pointed to Delaney, while over her shoulder her Uncle Symes returned to speaking with the other two men. ‘And call me Ben,’
he said, much preferring to pay attention to Tarin. ‘If we’re not on a first-name basis by now, we really must be in need of therapy.’

‘Ben it is, then.’ She smiled, making the whole world perfect, momentarily. ‘I tried to visit you at the hospital a few times, but it was either me in surgery, or you, and then the general whisked you and your mother away to a secure location.’

He struggled to sit up, and when Tarin helped him, he noticed she took great care to avoid pressure on the worst of his punished ribs. Part of him admired her for being so thoughtful, but mostly the gesture only managed to make him feel less of a man and more self-conscious around her. More guilty, too, about his feelings for Mira. ‘Please don’t mother me,’ he pleaded. ‘I get enough of that already from my real mother.’

‘Maybe that’s because you deserve it.’

‘Oh, no. You wouldn’t take her side if you knew her.’

‘I’ve seen her, and I like what I’ve seen. Tough lady.’ She tried to help him sit up a little more.

‘No, please. You’ve done far more than enough already.’ He squirmed to make himself comfortable without putting her to any more trouble. ‘Garland must be a record-breaking bitch to put you back on active duty.’

Tarin laughed. ‘Are you kidding? I had to beg and plead to get out here. Kitching murdered my sister. He shot her to pieces for trying to guard your Mira Chambers, and I’m not giving up until he’s dead or behind bars.’

She stiffened her shoulders decisively. ‘So what’s your excuse for escaping the white coats?’

‘I couldn’t breathe.’

‘I know what you mean.’

A long silence stretched between them. Comfortable, despite their injuries. Connected too, like an old
married couple, understanding each other on deeper levels. No words required.

Still, he had to ask. ‘How’s your arm?’

‘What arm? I’m in happy shiny land. Unless you ask him.’ She snubbed her nose at the young guy in leather pants. ‘Poor fool had the balls to suggest I was one hand short of a pair and then offered to make up for it. Now he’s two balls short of a happy sack.’

Ben grinned; his first smile in a week and it hurt. As much as he admired her, she’d just reminded him too much of his fractured nose, jaw and eye socket with piercing clarity. Oddly enough, not during either of those mind-blowing kisses. She could have sliced him in half and he never would have noticed.

‘Seriously,’ he whispered. ‘How are you coping?’ Her attitude seemed more in line with a tough kid who’d skinned a knee than a woman who’d lost her hand, and he really needed his own dose of the same attitude.

‘No secret.’ She leaned closer to his ear. ‘If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry, and I’d rather die than give Kitching that satisfaction.’

‘Your ribs must be killing you too?’ he asked.

‘Only when I breathe. Same as you, but we’re on the best painkillers ever to come out of R and D. And Garland’s put me up for a new kind of prosthetic. Still in development. She pulled strings to get me shot to the top of the list of volunteers. Plus she offered me the golden basket of missions and desk jobs, so I chose the best chance I’m ever going to get to nail Kitching.’

‘Amazing.’ He shook his head in disbelief.

‘More like Amazon,’ said their barefoot skipper as he wandered over. ‘Word of warning, mate. If you’re planning on getting fresh with this one, forget it. Everything below the belt is off limits, or else say goodbye to any future with children. She’s deadly.’

Ben exchanged a knowing glance with Tarin. I think I’m safe. I’ve seen what she does to men who touch her
without asking. If you’ve still got enough to fill your pants, you should count yourself lucky.’

‘Introductions,’ Tarin said finally, and then summarised how Symes and Moser had come to be with her and Darkin at Poacher’s Cove.

‘Except you and my dear niece are not the two guests we’ve been expecting,’ Symes said. ‘Smack me if I’m ever sorry to see you, Cassie, but the pair we’d hoped to meet here include your little lady friend Mira Chambers and that rather capable chap she’s kept on as her bodyguard. Adam Lockman. Remember him?’

‘Yeah,’ Ben said, flushing hot with a storm of emotions. ‘I remember him all right. Where is he? And where is Mira?’

Swooping in across the waves, keeping low to avoid detection, the Sea Hawk hovered briefly over a small school of jet skis, and snatched a sweet morsel of white fish into its claws — then made off with her at top speed for its nest on the mainland.

In its belly, the eel and the sardines all huddled together, along with Freddie; driven crazier by the noise of the engines.

He tore at his ears and wailed as his destiny drew nearer.

Lockman regained consciousness with a bleeding brow and splitting headache, but wasted no time in shimming the cable ties. They’d cut the long tails to the ties around his wrists, but he could still use his fingernail.

The corner of his thumbnail fit well enough. Hurt like hell to force it into the small gap under the tiny locking bar, but it certainly served effectively as the shim, enabling the plastic teeth to slide out of the mechanism as easily as a smooth plastic ribbon.

He disentangled himself within seconds, wishing he could have done it sooner without putting Mira at
greater risk, but at least now he’d have the advantage of surprise if he could ever catch up to them.

On his first step, his left leg failed him. A jolt of pain shot up and down the muscle from his thigh. Pulling the knife out made the blood flow more, and he had no med kit handy to stem the flow. They’d taken his backpack, so he fashioned a makeshift bandage with the hem of his cargo pants, cut with Pobody’s knife and held in place by his belt.

His watch warned that he’d lost almost twenty minutes. At a fast run, he knew Poacher’s Cove was another ten minutes further around the coast, and aboard the
Liquid Limo
he knew he’d have access to communications, a med kit and a jet boat to go after Mira. But he doubted his ability to run that far on an injured leg and still be fit enough to do anything useful after that. He wasn’t scheduled to be there for another few hours, but considering the difficulty in docking the
Limo
in that cove in the first place, he figured Darkin would have stayed to write music, rather than navigating in and out of that cove more than he had to.

Shaking his head clear, Lockman remembered he had another way to get there and limped swiftly for the semi-submerged log that led out into the water. Hurrying across to the mangroves, he found the
Seaview Play
exactly where Gabby had described it. Striped and crossed along most of the seams with marine-grade duct tape; a scattering of spent rolls littered the bottom, along with two or three half-rolls in various bubblegum colours.

Two sets of bullet holes now also tea-bagged the thin aluminium hull.

A life preserver peeked out from under the seat, and Lockman used Pobody’s knife again to conduct surgery. Slicing two long strips and bundling up the rest as wadding, he wedged in the waterproof material, leaving the makeshift blockages to bulge out both
sides, and used up the last of Gabby’s waterproof duct tape to complete the seals.

As he launched around the semi-submerged log into the water, other small leaks opened along a seam near the bow, and another near the motor, as if the impact of bullets had sent shockwaves through the aged metal.

Cantankerous to start as well. Nothing as fancy as a button start or ignition switch. He had to use a short length of perished rip-cord like an old lawn mower and vowed to buy her a better runabout, no matter what happened.

Once started, he managed to coax the angry little engine out of the mouth of the creek into open ocean — only to find it wider and emptier than he’d expected. To his left, a small flotilla of sailing boats and fishing vessels navigated haphazardly through the treacherous waters, while two bigger cargo ships and a supertanker kept much further out to sea, where Kitching’s Delta III seemed most likely to be.

Broad daylight, and yet he saw no sign of any jet skis or crab fishermen in any direction. He couldn’t even see any tell-tale foam from churned water that might have pointed the way for him — although even if he had, the best speed he could coax out of Gabby’s little runabout was akin to slow jogging.

Lockman cursed his luck as well as his strength. He’d let Mira down already. She might have managed to keep an active bug on her, but she didn’t know about the active jammer in his survival kit, which made the bug redundant. He wished he’d taken the time to warn her about it. If her captors found the jammer inside, they’d keep it running and be bound to take a lot more interest in searching her.

The thought of their hands on her made his blood burn like acid.

He opened the throttle as far as it would go and turned east for Poacher’s Cove, working the little engine as hard as it would go. For barely three minutes.

It spluttered and cut out, leaving him drifting.

General Garland paid for her cappuccino at the café and headed back to the private penthouse to continue surveillance over the nearby hotel — until she heard the growl of a motorbike. She glanced across the road in time to see the chesty silhouette of the local park ranger mounted on a gleaming Blackbird, donning a helmet.

Dressed in white and lavender leathers, which didn’t close properly across her bust line, Gabion Biche appeared to be making herself familiar with the indicators and other controls on the dash, as if she’d never ridden any bike before, let alone that one. And if her behaviour and possession of ill-fitting clothes weren’t suspicious enough, the pouch that she wore over her shoulder glowed metaphorically neon as a sign to stop her. Mira Chambers would never part with her treasured wallaby unless she had no other choice.