out.’
She closed the file and reached around to drop it on the back seat. There wasn’t much else in there for her. But what she’d seen was worthy of note. Caitlin turned to gaze out the window once more, looking for some perspective.
Northtown was a faithful copy of Norman Rockwell’s small-town America. The road had compressed down to two lanes here, with angled parking spots on both sides, most of which were empty of any vehicles. Wrought-iron benches that no one had time to sit in anymore poked through the snow every block or so. One shopfront featured a marquee advertising the latest Bond film, with the new guy.
Clusters of early morning commuters trudged down the sidewalks towards a bus station in front of an old drugstore, with their hard-hats and safety vests in hand. Probably on their way to scoop up the Disappeared. Bundled up against the cold as they were, Caitlin noticed that most of them were white, with a sprinkling of African-Americans and Hispanics thrown in. No sign of the many Indians she knew to be resident here. KC was dividing itself into camps, or ghettos.
After they’d turned onto Burlington, Colvin accelerated southbound. ‘Got more twists and turns than a pretzel factory out here,’ he said. ‘At least you don’t have to go out to the international airport. In this weather, we’d be looking at an hour-long drive.’
Caitlin nodded, still lost in her thoughts. A pair of F-16s with wing tanks howled into the air on the other side of the railway tracks, en route to patrol the southern approaches to Kansas City.
She was certain that Pieraro’s death had no connection to Ozal and through him to Baumer, so in that sense she had no dog in this fight. But she’d agreed to take on the job in Texas because there was at least a prima facie case linking Ozal - however indirectly - to Blackstone. And for Caitlin, that was motivation enough to maintain a watching brief on the matter of Miguel Pieraro. It was a loose thread, worth pulling.
After the long series of twisting streets and hairpin bends through a part of Northtown that Colvin called Harlem, they arrived at Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport. Such as it was. The main terminal building dated back to the 1930s and resembled a cross between a Quonset hut and a postmodern eco-home. A trio of C-130s sat on the flight line near the brown-brick building of the former TWA headquarters. Someone had told her on the ride into Harrah’s that Howard Hughes’s ghost haunted the place. As far as Caitlin was concerned, this whole country was haunted. The sooner she got on the plane and got this done, the better.
The flight was a regular military shuttle, but there were no other passengers. Still, she didn’t like to keep people waiting. When Colvin pulled into the drop-off zone, the Echelon agent turned down his offer to wait with her, but did so in as polite and friendly a manner as possible.
‘I’ll chase those phone logs up for you,’ he said over his shoulder, while extracting her suitcase from its place beside his container full of books.
‘If you could, that would be great,’ she replied. ‘Mr Pieraro had a daughter. She will want to see somebody punished for this.’
Colonel Katherine Murdoch waved goodbye, and walked into the departure lounge.
30
NORTH DARWIN, NORTHERN TERRITORY
Julianne changed motel rooms after the interview at the police station, a precaution, and an easy one. She was travelling light. She arrived outside Shah’s house in The Palms as the sun was dropping low over a wide bay, in which a few dozen sailboats and larger yachts lay at anchor. The burnt orange light of sunset had already coloured the green waters to a sparkling copper sheet.
Looking up from the street at the modern pole-and-beam home, Jules couldn’t help thinking that a spectacular view awaited her on the open-plan area that defined the upper storey, where a few people were already enjoying drinks and chatting in small groups. She’d been expecting a quiet family dinner, with perhaps Birendra or even Downing in attendance. But it seemed that a cocktail party was underway.
She guessed that the interior of the house opened up onto a vast, shaded platform enjoying clear views across an undeveloped strip of coastal scrub. From down here at street level, however, she couldn’t tell where the inside became the outside. But there was no mistaking the scar left behind on the footpath by the attempted bombing. A patch of grass, roughly six or seven feet across, had been charred down to burnt red earth on the verge in front of the post box. Or what had been the post box. The blast had torn huge chunks out of the sandstone plinth that served as a mailbox.
The killing heat of the afternoon no longer hammered down out of a hot, grey sky. But stepping out of her air-conditioned taxi onto the dark scab of scorched earth where Shah’s would-be assailants had fumbled their package and destroyed themselves, Jules still felt the crush of hot, moist tropical air. Her light silk shirt, the one she had borrowed from Ashmi, was sticking to her back by the time she’d walked up the driveway to the front door. Shrapnel from the explosion, stone chips and small pieces of metal, still pitted the dark wooden double doors. She was reaching for an antique iron knocker when the door opened and Shah greeted her, smiling effusively.
‘Come in, come in, Miss Julianne. The others are already here, having a drink upstairs. It is not a very large gathering, just some friends, people we can trust. And there’s somebody I want you to meet. He may be able to help.’
Unsettled for a moment - she hadn’t expected to have to socialise - Jules apologised for not bringing anything with her. ‘Oh Shah, if you’d said something, I would’ve picked up some wine.’
The host dismissed her concerns. ‘Pah! I shall not have you placing me further in your debt, Miss Julianne, when I already owe you so much,’ he said. ‘Come through, please. As I recall from our time on the golfer’s boat, you were always fond of bubble drink, and I have some very good French champagnes in my cellar downstairs. I always wanted a cellar, and now I have one. Let me send one of the girls down to fetch you something. Do I remember correctly, Pol Roger was your favourite? … Ah, here is my wife, Pasang. Please, say hello.’
She had been about to say that only French bubbles could be called champagne, and that yes, she shared a love of Pol Roger with Winston Churchill. But before she could throw the switch to small talk, a diminutive Nepalese woman, exquisitely dressed in European clothes - French, too, if Jules’s eye for fashion did not mislead her - appeared at Shah’s elbow bearing champagne flutes.
‘Miss Julianne Balwyn,’ she said with the tone of someone reading from a script. ‘Please excuse my English. Unlike husband, I am not longed with speaking it. But I practise and learn every day so that once I may thank you for taking him home to me and our daughters. And for the … the honouring of arrangements you make. You always in a special place for our family’s heart.’
Pasang passed her a drink and performed a small bow. Jules found herself strangely touched, which wasn’t like her at all. Shah had already thanked her for sticking to their original deal, as difficult as that had been after the
So no, not at all like her.
‘Thank you,’ she replied, faltering briefly over the woman’s name, ‘… Pasang.’
‘Thank you, thank you. You are the Deliverer, Miss Julianne.’ The Nepali’s pretty, jewel-like eyes sparkled with delight.
Shah gave his wife a peck on the cheek before taking Jules gently by the elbow and steering her into a large reception room, with Pasang following closely behind. Dark slate tiles had soaked up the chill from a silent, invisible air-conditioning system. After the uncomfortable humidity of the street, it was blissful to walk into a space that seemed to breathe a gentle, almost wintry gift of frost onto her exposed, sunburnt skin. She sipped from her champagne, struggling with the urge to throw down the whole glass in one go.
The antechamber was quite beautiful. A few pieces of modern art hung on the white walls, offsetting a couple of artefacts that had obviously travelled all the way from their home village in Nepal. Julianne had to admire the restrained taste. She would never have thought it of someone like Shah, a rough-handed soldier, and a former non-com, not even an officer.
But with that unworthy thought came immediate embarrassment. Who was she to be judging others on their aesthetics? She had spent the last five or six years mostly unwashed and dressed in stinking rags. First as a smuggler with Pete and Fifi, then as a pirate, a glorified looter in New York, and of late as a fugitive, scurrying from one bolthole to the next. Shah was a fine man. Someone who had taken whatever talents he had been gifted and
