Leopard Dreaming (42 page)

‘
Illegal
money trades. And of how much by the way? A quarter of nothing is still nothing on my calculator.’

‘Ten billion — for starters. If you’re happy with how it works out, we can talk about repeat business later, after you’ve decided not to hand in your notice.’

Lina laughed. ‘I can’t touch drug money. I’ll lose everything. Not that I’ve got much left, in any case. This penthouse is owned by the company, and I have to rent it.’

‘It’s not drug money. It’s foreign currencies. For every new note you produce, you’re responsible for destruction of an old one. That’s your specific role in the company, right?’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘So we’ll use the same trick the American intelligence agencies have been using for decades to fund their own black operations. I’ll supply you with a load of used bank notes from four of your client countries who’ve
been known to sympathise with terrorists. And you give me the new notes, all above board and accountable so I can exchange them elsewhere for more reputable currencies.’

‘You’ll screw up their economies.’

‘They’re screwed up anyway. And any country that still has some of its notes produced the old way is guilty of condoning counterfeiting for terrorists and international crime cartels. They’ve already lost track of how much money they’re supposed to have out in the world, circulating.’

‘Well, it certainly sounds slick enough,’ Lina conceded, ‘but swapping old notes for new is still called laundering, so far as I know.’

‘Not if you destroy all the old notes in accordance with your security obligations. It’s nearly all been dirty money by the time you get it then anyway.’

‘And if twenty-five per cent isn’t enough, compared to the risk?’

‘Your life isn’t enough to hang in the balance?’

‘My life is shit.’

‘Take thirty per cent,’ Kitching said, surprising Mira. She’d expected him to start threatening Lina’s next of kin. ‘It’s not the money I need, so much as the turnover. I can also sweeten the deal by arranging a few things; clear your husband’s name and put the rest of the gang away for at least a decade. Not just the third boy from the —’

‘Deal!’ she said, urgently. ‘You put that band of ferals in jail, and we’ll get cracking. Or better yet, just kill them. If you’re really black ops, you wouldn’t hesitate.’

‘We don’t do kids. It’s a line we don’t cross, and nine of those boys are still minors.’

‘
That’s
a line?’ she cried. ‘You ambush me in my own home, slap me around with guns in my face and take me to hell and back down memory lane — and
that’s
a line? I’m the victim here! They’re wild, and I’m the legitimate businesswoman!’

‘The guns aren’t actually in
your
face,’ Kitching argued. ‘They’re here to protect
her
.’

‘Protect me?’ Mira gaped in astonishment.

‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe that,’ Lina said, clearly regaining some of her former confidence. ‘They’re all pointed at me.’

‘You’re the one who made aggressive moves for her, and this neighbourhood has killer shadows, not just killer views.’ Kitching clicked his fingers and Mira heard the men safety their weapons. ‘Play nice, ladies, and you’ll get no more trouble from them.’

‘Fine, so how are we going to work this?’ Lina asked. ‘To swap currencies takes no less than three working days, and you’ll need to make the initial application yourself. Online is the only way. And not through a laptop. You’ll need a mainframe computer at a secure location so the internet protocol code stays the same for all the subsequent paperwork until it’s done.’

‘Way ahead of you.’

Outside, the familiar thrum of an air-sea rescue flight returned; such a common patrol along the coast that few residents ever paid it much attention, provided it didn’t hang in one place for too long.

‘Get the others,’ Kitching ordered. ‘This way, please, ladies. The ride’s on me.’

He snatched Mira’s shades off her and the building vanished. Time fled back over a century, leaving her suspended in midair. She clamped her eyes shut immediately, and tried to make it as far as the door, but she lost balance and the pain left her head spinning.

Kitching caught her against his old wiry body.

‘I’ve got you,’ he whispered. ‘Now you’ll have to trust me.’

‘Ahoy aboard!’ Gabby shouted from the pier. ‘Is anyone there?’

‘Wait.’ Lockman signalled for the others to hold fire so they couldn’t hurt her or frighten her away. ‘Stay out of sight. I know her.’

‘
You
know her?’ Ben rolled forward angrily. ‘She’s been
my
best friend since kindergarten … Gabby!’ he called, but Lockman grabbed his chair to prevent him from rolling out into the open.

‘She isn’t supposed to be here, mate. I sent her on an errand that should have taken her well clear of any danger.’

‘Oh yeah, and that worked out brilliantly, as usual.’

‘Benny?’ she called excitedly. ‘Is that you? Is Adam with you? Where are you?’

‘Oh, hell,’ Ben muttered. ‘She’s on a first-name basis with you now too?’

‘Come on, Benny!’ she called. ‘My dinghy’s here, so I know he must be. What’s going on? We’ve been so worried about you!’

‘For her sake, don’t answer yet,’ Lockman pleaded. ‘Give me time to check first. She could be cheese in a trap.’

‘All the better to find the rat before he gets her too.’ Ben cupped his injured hands to his mouth as a makeshift loudspeaker. ‘He’s here, Gab! And I’m fine. We’re coming out.’

Lockman lunged to the railing ahead of him and saw Gabion Biche wearing Mira’s white and lavender riding leathers with the joey’s pouch still slung over her shoulder. ‘You okay?’ he called down to her. ‘What went wrong?’

‘I should ask you the same thing. I thought you were headed to the hotel.’

‘Don’t ask. Come aboard, quick, Gab. Or clear out of here. We’ve got big trouble coming.’ He looked for his Blackbird. ‘How did you get here?’

‘Armed escort.’ She grinned and clapped her hands twice. ‘Compliments of General Garland.’

Lockman tensed, crouching and raising his weapon within sight of Gabby — until Brette and Finnigan appeared from opposite sides of the clearing, both dressed as fishermen except for their Steyr rifles slung loosely and green vests packed a little too obviously with ammunition instead of hooks and tackle.

‘Easy, big guy!’ Gabby flung herself between them and Lockman. ‘She sent them here to help. Apparently there’s a pair of gate crashers here to collect.’

‘
You’re
the team she sent?’ Ben asked warily.

Brette tapped his head, drawing attention to the absence of headsets. ‘Bravo and Felix. We’ve got a mole in the nest.’

Gabby V-ed her fingers at Lockman as the international symbol for peace. ‘We need to talk, Adam. Can permission to come aboard include them, please?’

Lockman set down the spare sidearm, keeping his Glock at the ready, and called for Darkin to do his trick with the retractable deck. The others took the cue to emerge tentatively too; Symes and Moser taking positions on opposite sides of the deck to better their chances of spotting any further surprises from the forest, while the dog sniffed at the pouch, growled and bounced about, yapping.

Delaney clicked her fingers and the Shih Tzu backed off and sat, eyeing the pouch suspiciously. ‘What’s in the bag?’

‘Cassie?’ Gabby hugged Ben first, then her, and cast a sideways glance back and forth between them. ‘Since when are you and Ben ever on the same planet?’

‘She abducted me.’

‘I did not! Orders from on high, Gab. So help me, he’s yours if you want him.’ Delaney glanced at the pouch again. ‘Did that just wriggle?’

‘Just a joey,’ Lockman said. He led them inside, and seized the first opportunity he’d had to check his backpack thoroughly, while the others made their introductions. ‘We a need a lookout,’ he said, with a nod to Moser. Moser nodded in reply and left, while Lockman needed only a second inside the bag to ensure the signal jammer was still on and operational so Kitching’s mole couldn’t track him. Then he delved deeper for his med kit.

‘What happened to you?’ asked Brette, looking genuinely concerned. ‘We’ve got another field kit in the truck if you need it.’

‘Try this.’ Darkin unclipped a large portable medical cabinet from the helm. On wheels. About the size of a dishwasher. ‘Stand back when you open it. There’s probably a few surgeons and nurses in there, getting low on air. I haven’t used it more than twice in three years, since I first bought the
Limo
.’

‘Thanks.’ Lockman returned his own kit to his bag for emergencies and set up a small field theatre on the bar to tend to his thigh wound. Removing the belt from his leg, he prepared to cleanse it — until Tarin and Gabby rushed over with offers to do it for him. Both gasped as he opened the hole in his trousers enough to reveal the depth of the wound, causing Ben to glower at him all the more for their attention.

‘I can handle this,’ Tarin said possessively. ‘Take a seat, please, Ms Biche, and tell us what happened between you and the general?’

‘Prisoner’s rights being abused over here,’ Pobody reminded them. With his hands bound behind him, he couldn’t wave, but he made an attempt anyway. ‘Care to share any of that clot-fast over here?’

‘Oh, oui?’ Gabby snatched up a roll of bandage and tossed it in the air, toying with it. ‘If Adam keeps you down like that, you must deserve to fix your own leg.’

‘Don’t speak to them,’ Lockman warned, seizing the opportunity to dab at his own wound.

‘You don’t mean that. Legally speaking, you’re requesting us to afford them all due care and attention at our earliest opportunity, and in order of priority in accordance with the latest UN convention for prisoners. That’s called covering your arse.’ Gabby pushed the bandage into Tarin’s hand, and politely ushered her away from Lockman. ‘That also means you get to handle them, and I’ll handle Adam.’

Darkin slid a stool closer for Gabby to use while she tended to Lockman. ‘So you’re a lady soldier too?’ he asked.

‘No, but thanks.’ Instead of sitting on it, she filled the seat with more of the supplies she needed to keep handy, while Lockman provided a second set of hands to help with digging dirt from his wound with tweezers.

‘You don’t strike me as being cut from the same sheet of steel as him.’ Darkin leaned in with a hand, as if expecting to interrupt her with a formal handshake in greeting.

‘Park … Ranger.’ Gabby said, as if she’d only just recognised him as music royalty. She blushed, and accepted his handshake timidly. ‘National Parks and —’

‘Wildlife.’ He grinned and kissed her hand instead of shaking it. ‘Birds of a feather, and here we are flocking. Nice leather plumage, by the way, but it’s a shame the designer didn’t cater for so much woman in one package.’

‘Oh, oui? Did you just call me fat?’

‘Chesty. Not the same thing with hips so sexily slim.’

‘Yeah, right.’ She snatched back her hand and sterilised it from a tube of medical wash. ‘Didn’t realise a mouth like yours could drip so much treacle.’

‘Zoo’s full.’ Delaney lifted her Shih Tzu onto the lid of the spa with a hand signal for Bam Bam to lie flat and stay quiet. ‘So what brings you here?’

‘Oh, see? Now that depends on wherever Mira may be.’ Gabby didn’t bother looking up for an answer. She tore open a bottle of distilled water to irrigate Lockman’s injury, and peeled open a satchel containing a bandage infused with a clot-fast agent and anaesthetic. ‘How in the wide, wild world of extreme sports did you two ever end up with matching wounds in the thigh?’

‘Seriously, don’t ask.’ Lockman reached for the bandage, a smaller size than the ones in his own med kit, and a different brand name, but Gabby slapped his fingers away. ‘I can do this,’ he assured her. ‘Just give me the sit-rep on Garland, okay?’

‘Bad patient. No painkiller. You know I get grumpy until I know all my friends are safe. Now who’s got the balls to tell me why Mira isn’t here to complete the pic for the family album?’

‘She’s been taken,’ Ben said, with a sideways glare at Lockman, but as soon as he explained about their two captives, Gabby strode over to them, kicked their butts and spat on them.

‘Where is she?’ she demanded.

Darkin chuckled, but his eyes lingered on her with a spark that Lockman recognised as genuine admiration. ‘Now there’s a woman!’

‘Oh, oui?’ she snapped back at him. ‘And why haven’t you got this bucket moving to do something?’

‘She’s gone,’ Darkin argued. ‘Do what exactly?’

‘You’ve got sonar and radar on a vessel this fancy, surely?’

‘It happened on land, and even then, none of us were watching.’

‘So rewind your auto-recorder to the time they got separated. Doesn’t matter if it wasn’t nearby or
on water. The instrument reads a full circle, and you should have range-recorded out to at least a dozen nautical miles in every direction. So start there, and find what suspicious traffic came and went from the area.’

‘I can do that?’

‘You’re the one under the captain’s hat.’

‘That doesn’t mean I understand all the flashing lights and gizmos. I only learned enough to get my skipper’s licence. I write music, baby. Haven’t you ever heard of me?’

‘Get out of my way.’ She left Lockman to finish with his wound after all, shouldered Darkin aside from the helm, and took barely a few seconds to familiarise herself with the complex control panel.

‘Well, haven’t you?’ Darkin persisted.

‘Yeah, yeah. Brilliant. Great tunes for jogging, but not my first priority right now.’

Lockman packed away the mess, tested weight on his bandaged leg and joined her at the helm.

‘Hands off! Everyone back up a step,’ she ordered. ‘And
you
!’ She pointed to Darkin. ‘You’re demoted to second mate. Go and cast off for me.’

‘We need to put passengers ashore first,’ Lockman said, raising his hands and first to back off.

Ben raised his hands defensively too. ‘Hey, don’t look at me, I’m going after Mira. If you need to chit-chat about Garland, go and talk to her personally.’

‘You’re injured!’ Lockman argued. ‘You can’t —’