The diminutive senior non-com appeared to stand a foot taller as he smiled. It was an almost cartoonish grin that lifted Caitlin’s spirits for no reason she could identify. ‘That would be most excellent, madam Colonel,’ he said. ‘I shall continue my walk and hope to see you again.’
They bade each other goodbye without military formality and Caitlin resumed her journey back to the hotel. She was intrigued by Milosz’s mention of the two smugglers in New York … Could they be connected to the pair of clowns she’d encountered when looking for Baumer’s command post on the upper eastside? Or was it even those two themselves - the shifty Sloane Ranger and her idiot Viking sidekick, that slob with the busted-ass novelty cowhorn helmet. Jesus what a fucking pair of retards.
She made a mental note to contact Vancouver to request an encrypted burst of Master Sergeant Milosz’s service record. If she had even an indirect connection to him via those looters, she’d need to be careful about maintaining her cover here.
The refurbished lobby of the Kyle Hotel was alive with activity, for Temple, on a wet weekend afternoon. Ten or more people were enjoying a drink in the bar that Musso told her they’d built from salvage collected around the city. It was a comfortable but eclectic space, unsurprisingly, with no theme to tie the disparate elements together. Was it a sports bar, a ladies’ reading lounge, a Victorian-era gentlemen’s club or a military mess? Depending on where you looked, it could’ve been any of those things. It worked as a social space, however. Food, drink, company. All you had to do was ask.
Caitlin drew a few looks as she hurried through the lobby. A new face always would in an environment like this. She took the elevator to her room on the fourth floor and ran a hot shower. She’d read McCutcheon’s profile in the briefing package back in KC: air force major; forty-two years old; unmarried at the time of the Wave; no children; working on secondment as Blackstone’s aide at Fort Lewis; resigned his commission the same day as the general and followed him down to Texas, where he ran Mad Jack’s successful campaign for governor in ‘05. A fixer, in the style of Jed Culver, if she wasn’t mistaken.
Would’ve been easier if he was gay, she thought, as she stepped under the hot water. It felt scalding on those parts of her body that had been exposed out in the cold air. Her fingers, her face and neck. After a few seconds she grew used to it, appreciating the way the heat worked out some of the cramps she’d picked up on the flight down here.
After towelling off, she debated what to wear to the meeting, eventually going with casual drill pants, a black tee-shirt and her leather jacket. After all, it was just a getting-to-know you drink on a slow Sunday afternoon. She didn’t want McCutcheon thinking that Colonel Murdoch had gone to any special effort for him.
At 1800 hours sharp - Katherine Murdoch was nothing if not punctual - she stepped out of the elevator into the lobby and made her way to the bar. She saw Musso straightaway, sitting with an athletic-looking middle-aged man, who seemed a couple of years older than forty-two because of his iron-grey hair. Major Tyrone McCutcheon.
The two men stood as she approached, while being observed by everybody in the bar. The crowd seem to have swelled to two or three times the number she’d noted earlier.
‘Colonel Katherine Murdoch,’ said Tusk Musso, ‘I’d like you to meet Governor Blackstone’s senior aide, Ty McCutcheon … Mr McCutcheon, Colonel Murdoch has joined us from Dearborn House to have a look at the situation with Roberto. I’m hoping you’ll be able to work well together.’
‘So am I,’ replied McCutcheon, smiling.
She took his hand.
‘That depends on whether or not you’re going to try to shake me down with all the chickenshit security theatre you’ve been using to make everyone’s life a fucking misery around here,’ she spat, before sitting herself down and signalling to the waitress that she was ready for a drink.
She was only the person moving or making any noise in the room.
35
DARWIN, NORTHERN TERRITORY
Shah’s men were good. Julianne slept through the night, and when she awoke - well after dawn, to judge by the brightness of the morning light streaming in around the edges of the curtains - she realised with a slight start that they’d been in her room. In just a few hours, her fusty, crushed, stinking clothes seemed to have been quietly spirited out of her small backpack, laundered and returned, crisp, dry and folded. A small selection of other items of clothing, all of them more suited to summer in the tropics than her rags, hung from the door handle or lay draped across the back of the room’s only chair.
She put aside her surprise, however, and any natural disquiet. Birendra was supervising them, after all, and these men had gathered around her in a protective shield at the behest of Narayan Shah. At any rate, her concern was marginal. After years of shipboard life, she had a high tolerance for people messing around in her personal space. Sometimes it was necessary. No point in being precious.
Jules swung her feet out of bed and padded over to the windows to edge the curtain open a few inches, just enough to brighten the room so she could move around without tripping. While she was mixing and matching outfits from the pieces scattered around, she noticed a couple of significant accessories. A mobile phone and a handgun. The phone was a Nokia, one of the new models with a large colour screen and internet access. Sitting next to it on the dressing table was a SIG Sauer pistol, with three spare clips of ammunition. The shotgun that Granger had given her was gone. Fair enough, she thought. Darwin was a frontier town, entirely feral in parts, but she doubted the local wallopers would stand for her walking around with a sawn-off elephant gun.
In the bathroom also, she found evidence of unusual thoughtfulness on the part of Shah’s men. Or perhaps the beautiful Ashmi had been in their ears. The cheap no-name toiletries supplied by the motel had been replaced by body gel, shampoo and conditioner from Crabtree & Evelyn. Jules nearly swooned.
She towelled off her damp hair after a long shower, turning her mind to the practicalities of having burnt her fall-back ID, the increasingly compromised Julia Black. She had just over a thousand dollars in cash, which wouldn’t last long in Darwin. On the other hand, she had three credit cards in the name of Ms Black. Three cards she could no longer use, because they’d automatically give away her location to any interested parties. Shah would undoubtedly support her, but she’d need to be able to look after herself.
The answer, at least a temporary one, slipped under the door as she was getting dressed. A large white envelope, with her name inked on the front. Jules finished buttoning up the sky-blue linen shirt she’d thrown on over a pair of khaki shorts, before retrieving the envelope.
Inside she found two thousand dollars Australian in ‘pineapples’ - the bright yellow, plastic fifty quid notes they used down here. There was also a note from Nick Pappas and a printout of a Microsoft Where 2 map downloaded from the web. The map showed her the route to a waterfront cafe where she should meet Pappas in half an hour.
She fitted a holster for the pistol to the thick, soft brown leather belt Shah had supplied. The gun sat comfortably in the small of her back, covered by the long tail of the shirt. She found the placement awkward, having carried her weapons openly for the last few years. But then, for the last few years, she had mostly been travelling well beyond the edge of the civilised world.
She finished lacing up a pair of sturdy comfortable walking boots, divided the cash into three lots, adding some to the thousand dollars in her wallet and securing the rest in two pockets she could zip closed. Her complexion had tanned to a deep caramel over the years of shipboard exposure, but she took the time to apply a layer of moisturiser with a high UV rating anyway. In her opinion, Australian women had old rhino hide for skin, and Julianne did not intend to emulate them for want of five minutes’ basic skin care.
That thought led naturally to worrying about the Rhino, and wondering how she might be able to contact him. Those two rozzers up at Bagot Road obviously hadn’t come through with anything for Piers Downing. Reminding herself to ask Pappas, Jules left the room.
Her bodyguards were nowhere to be seen outside. The note from the former SAS man told her they would be around, but she couldn’t see them at all.
*
She joined Pappas at his table, tucked into a back corner of a dining room that enjoyed views over the ocean. The Sirocco Cafe, according to the Australian, was a real-world example of how the power structure of this city had been wrenched free of its moorings by the Wave. Change had come quickly. And it had run deep.
