front desk and Freddi introduced Fanshaw, the junior intel guy, to Mac.
‘Cheers,’ said Mac. ‘Just want to check what this clipboard says in the photo.’
The bloke put the pic in a scanner, pulled it up on his laptop screen, used the cursor to defi ne an area and then double-clicked several times. He made adjustments in an enhancement box at the side of the screen, repixelating the image digitally, and within thirty seconds the German software had brought the top of that clipboard alive. Fanshaw pointed and Mac leaned in.
The girl’s surname was ELLISON. But it was her fi rst names, in smaller text, that shocked Mac to the core. Sarah McQueen.
CHAPTER 35
Freddi peeled away to the gents as they closed on Diane’s room. Mac came around a corner, his mind racing, trying to get the timeline right for Diane’s – their – daughter, and walked into two men loitering outside the door.
One was the heavily muscled shape of a soldier Mac recognised from two years ago in Jakarta. Carl had been present when Mac and Diane had gone out for their last dinner together. He hadn’t changed much: his usual Levis and Hi-Tecs, a black leather holster-bag around his middle that Mac knew contained a SIG Sauer 9 mm and probably a fancy military micro-radio.
Beside Carl was a tall dark-haired MI6 operative by the name of Danny Fitzgibbon. Danny seemed out of place in the fi eld. In an early rotation in Singapore, Mac, Dave Urquhart and Danny were all stationed together. Urquhart and Danny had become friends whose conversation centred on the ministerial end of the job. Urquhart now worked liaison with the Prime Minister’s offi ce and Mac had assumed Danny was doing something similar in London.
‘Danny,’ he said, nodding.
Then, winking at the soldier, Mac said, ‘How’s it going, Carl?’
Carl smiled and nodded but Danny put his hands on his hips and made no attempt to get out of the way. ‘I was hoping you’d turn up, McQueen.’
‘It’s nice to be loved, Danny.’
‘Still a smartarse, I see,’ Danny sneered. ‘But that didn’t help her, did it?’ he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.
‘Mate, I’m tired, okay?’ said Mac, not wanting this. ‘I’ve got some things Diane asked for -‘
‘Like what?’ Danny challenged, his beady eyes dropping to the handbag.
Mac turned to Carl, smiled. ‘You’ll come for the looks, stay for the personality, eh Carl?’
Carl tried to suppress a laugh, but couldn’t. The British diplomat bodyguards were smart, experienced guys plucked out of special forces and the metro police. They could be just as confused by the wankers from Six as anyone.
‘Don’t worry about him, McQueen,’ snarled Danny, moving forward and trying to get all the height he could out of his lanky frame. ‘The main game’s over here, mate.’
‘Okay, Danny, nice talking to you, I’ll be going in now.’ He moved half a step and Danny fronted him, did it so they touched chests, did it in such a way that if he was in Mount Isa or Kalgoorlie he’d be crawling around on the fl oor by now, looking for his teeth.
‘Where you think you’re going, McQueen?’
‘I’m sorry?’ asked Mac, wondering where he could hit him and not be reprimanded by the fi rm.
‘I asked you what’s in the bag.’
‘Just a few selected pictures of me with your mother.’
Danny’s pupils dilated and his lips went white as Carl expelled a snort of laughter. Mac was prepared to take one shot so he could give fi fteen and still claim in his report that he’d been attacked. Danny tensed and a voice came from behind Mac.
‘What’s up, Fitzgibbon?’
Danny’s nostrils fl ared as he stared into Mac’s eyes, his gaze fl ickering over Mac’s shoulder. ‘Freddi – how’s things?’ Danny croaked, his throat striated with wire-like tendons.
Freddi moved up to Mac’s left shoulder and got in close to Danny.
‘Like I said, Fitzgibbon, what’s up?’
Mac sensed a new coldness in Freddi’s voice.
‘Lass is the daughter of one of ours, mate,’ said Danny, fl icking his head. ‘He’s fl ying in from Ottawa but for now she’s under our protection.’
‘Oh, really?’ said Freddi.
‘Carl’s diplomatic. I’m just down here to ask McQueen what happened.’
‘POLRI will ask him that, Fitzgibbon. For now, he’s seeing the girl.’
Danny didn’t move, so Freddi moved closer, did his own fronting.
‘Tell you what, Fitzgibbon, if I’m ever in London, you can tell me what door I can walk through, okay? But in my town you get out of my way.’
‘The girl’s diplomatic too, Freddi. Don’t want an incident, do we?’ said Danny.
‘You’re lending yourself – girl’s working for the Aussies,’ snarled Freddi. ‘So move!’
Danny stood back from the door, raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘Wouldn’t want to cause offence, Fred.’
Freddi moved to the door and Carl cleared his throat. ‘Mr McQueen, sir,’ he said, pointing at Diane’s bags. ‘Wouldn’t mind, would you, sir?’
Mac gave him the large leather handbag and Carl knelt down on the fl oor and went through it expertly, then quickly dealt with the duty-free bag containing Diane’s clothes. After he’d fi nished Carl stood and returned the bags and Mac pulled the Defender from his belt, gave it to him. Carl looked sheepish so Mac said, ‘Come on, mate
– get it over with,’ and Carl patted him for concealeds.
Inside the room, Carl and Freddi stood at the back while Mac moved to Diane’s side. She was sleeping, her breaths slow and shallow.
Mac watched her and decided he’d pick things up in the morning. But as he stood to go, she opened her eyes and he sat again.
‘The photo?’ she whispered.
Mac just nodded, too choked up to say anything.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I wanted to tell you but when I went to see you – on the Gold Coast – you were… It was all gone, I’d lost you and I couldn’t see -‘ She started crying again and Mac pulled blue tissues from a box, wiped her cheeks.
‘So, she’d be?’
‘Almost eighteen months,’ Diane smiled. ‘And beautiful.’
‘So she looks like you?’
‘No – she’s a McQueen. Very stubborn.’
‘So, she’s running around?’
Diane nodded, gulped. ‘Dad says she’ll be a famous sports star
– she loves to swing her little racquet.’
As they talked about Sarah, Mac felt that old cold feeling come back – the one he got before he went into the fi eld. It was like an old friend, whispering in his ear, saying, Get these bastards.
His eyes must have been hardening because Diane suddenly stopped herself.
‘Need to know about the shooters?’
Mac nodded.
It was almost two am when Freddi pulled up in front of the Shangri-La. They walked through into the BAIS operations post behind the front desk, the images bloke, Fanshaw, leaping up as he saw them.
Freddi said something in Bahasa to Fanshaw and the bloke sat down and rolled the chair up closer to the keyboard. They stood over his shoulder, looked at what he had.
