Angels of Vengeance

Town.

Perhaps that’s all he needed. One good break, a decent score, and he could set himself up with something a little more substantial than casual deckhand work. Maybe even enough to buy a shrimping sub-licence from one of the Chinese combines, or enough to lease a fast boat to make a few undeclared runs out to the fishing grounds off Papua. Their patrols were a lot less trouble to avoid than the Aussie Navy and Customs guys.

The Gueros were at home, cooking fish on a grill made from a collection of 55-gallon drums. He made his way down the last turn into his row, at the farthest reach of the floating dock, sizing up his chances. The scent of sizzling garlic and lemon set his stomach to grumbling again, in spite of the food he’d picked up at Blue Smoke. Although, to be fair, even the much-reinforced cone of chicken wings was grossly inadequate fare when it came to feeding a hungry Rhino.

He didn’t much fancy getting caught chewing the fat with Carlos Guero, and Lord knew there was no such thing as a quick chat with the man. That said, Carlos was a generous soul, as generous with his grill as he was with his conversation, and the Rhino did feel as though just a little more eatin’ might set him up well for his afternoon siesta. All the better to sharpen mind and body for an evening out in New Town.

‘Buenos tardes, Senor Carlos, Senora Juanita,’ he called out, very much aware of how tipsy he felt, and thinking he must look like a staggering drunk as he veered back and forth with the rocking of the pontoons. ‘Permission to come aboard?’

‘Ah, Mr Ross. Come, come, we have barramundi fish - a large one. Come, and I shall make you a fish sandwich.’

‘Mighty kind of you, neighbour,’ he called back. Saliva squirted into his mouth as a sluggish breeze off the bay carried the smell of Guero’s grill to him.

Juanita Guero produced a round of flat bread from within a foil packet at her feet and passed it to her husband. Unlike him, she rarely spoke to anyone outside the family. They had three teenagers, who were lucky enough to have places in one of the open-air schools run by the Catholic Church. The kids would not be around until much later in the day. As payment for their tuition, they worked for two hours every afternoon in the church market gardens. The Rhino wondered why Carlos wasn’t over at the seafood markets like Hughie, but he knew better than to ask. Everyone in Darwin knew better than to ask about each other’s affairs. You just took people as they came.

‘Muchas gracias,’ Rhino said, accepting the warm, flatbread roll from Guero. He had stuffed it generously with the char-grilled, meaty flesh of the barramundi and a few scraps of salad.

‘There was a lady looking for you this morning,’ said Carlos as he squeezed some lemon juice over a fish roll for his wife.

The Rhino was instantly on guard. ‘Official, was it? Migration or Customs? Brown-shirts maybe?’

‘Oh no, I do not think so. She was an English lady, pretty, but not at all official. She would not tell me what she wanted you for. Would not leave a name. She was very evading of my questions. She wished to know which boat was yours, but I am afraid I would not tell her. I hope that was the right thing.’

The Rhino chewed slowly and nodded. An English lady? He didn’t ask; the less said, the better. ‘Anybody else?’ he wondered aloud.

Both the Gueros shook their heads. ‘We have not been here all day,’ Carlos explained. ‘I was delayed this morning awaiting a call from the Fisheries people. My licence, Mr Rhino, it is to be approved this week.’

Guero was beaming as he spoke, and his wife nodded and smiled as though a burden had been lifted off her chest.

‘It is only a small operator’s licence,’ he continued. ‘Two shrimp trawlers, when once I had a fleet of factory ships, yes? But I did not start with a fleet, my friend. Not then and not now. This is good news, and so we have come home to celebrate. I shall open a bottle of wine tonight and …’ He glanced across at his wife and smiled fondly. ‘And I was wondering if we might prevail upon you, my friend. The children - I wonder if they might visit with you this evening, just for a few hours? I would normally ask the Carascalaos to mind them, but they are working late at the cathedral tonight. Helping the father with the new arrivals.’

Most of what Carlos had said passed right through the Rhino’s skull without lodging, but when he realised the Mexican was after a favour, he pulled himself out of his reverie.

‘Oh, sure thing, Carlos … Sorry. I was pondering pretty English ladies come to visit. But sure - hell yes, send your kids over. I have somewhere to be later in the evening, but not until way later.’

‘Excellent. I shall send them with a bottle of beer, and my thanks. And some dinner, of course. More fish - if you have the appetite for it?’

‘That’d be fine, Carlos. I’ll look forward it, and congrats on your news. That’s excellent, buddy. But if you don’t mind me dining and dashing, I’d best get back to my berth. I’d like to make a few calls, find out who this pretty lady was. There are not so many pretty ladies in my life that I can afford to let them get away these days.’

The other man nodded. ‘Of course, we will talk later. Perhaps I might have something more to offer than beer and fish after tonight.’

Carlos waved him away. Juanita smiled, a little bashfully, then busied herself with preparing the next piece of fish for the grill. They seemed to have a cooler brimming with fillets.

The Rhino folded the rest of the sandwich into his mouth as he walked down the end of the row to his boat. The pretty English lady was almost certainly Miss Julianne, although her calling on him could not be good news. They’d agreed after escaping the States and Henry Cesky’s vengeful reach that it would be better if they parted ways. The last he’d seen of her, she’d been walking away from him, up George Street in Sydney. They hadn’t parted on bad terms, despite the epic fuck-up in New York, but if Cesky had men looking for them, Jules and he were much more likely to stand out travelling in a pair than they were on their own.

He frowned murderously whenever he thought of Cesky. The man’s power seemed to grow every day. His wealth was approaching the levels of Boeing and Microsoft, two lucky corporate survivors of the Disappearance by reason of their being headquartered just outside the fall of the Wave, and having products that were still in demand. Starbucks too, unfortunately, thought Rhino. It was a sign of how far the pre-Wave corporations had fallen and how fast Cesky’s rise had been.

Why here? Rhino pondered that one. He couldn’t imagine why Julianne would be in Darwin, or how she’d even found him. That alone was reason to worry.

He scoped out his boat as he approached the end of the floating walkway. The Redneck Princessa was a 32-foot motor yacht. She looked battered and careworn after the run across the pond from Winchester Bay, and three months tied up as a houseboat here at Gonzales Road. The trim had faded. Her chrome surfaces were dull and speckled with spots of rust. Blobs of guano marred the deck and flying bridge. Perhaps it was the midday beers or the humidity, but he felt slightly nauseous contemplating the decay and air of abandonment. He would never have allowed any of his crew to get away with such slackness back in the Coast Guard, and he had no excuse for it now. This was worse than having his old charter shot up back in Acapulco. This was his own fault.

Feeling ashamed of himself, the Rhino climbed aboard awkwardly, looking for any sign that someone had been here while he’d been out on the shrimp boat for the previous two days. Rainwater had pooled here and there, dumped by the monsoon falls. The fish scraps left for the stray cat he’d taken to feeding were mostly gone; the bowl now full of water and probably mosquito larvae. He bent down to pick it up, too quickly … The rush of blood out of his head, the sulphurous humidity, the beers, the greasy food, they all combined to send his stomach pitching and rolling. He half lunged, half fell towards the gunwale to hurl over the side, but the safety rail struck him below his centre of gravity and he felt the world tip away.

‘Rhino!’

The voice was familiar, but far away. An English accent. Educated, privileged.

He recognised Miss Julianne’s voice a split second before tumbling over the edge. And then the boat disintegrated in a violent explosion that flung him feet-first far across the water, turning and burning, torn by pain and rage and a bone-deep sense of violation that passed only as darkness welled up and claimed him.

23

DARWIN, NORTHERN TERRITORY

Nearly eight months since she’d escaped New York and her nerves were still scraped raw. She flinched and