walked to the one on the left and opened it to a beautiful sunny room that looked out over dunes to the ocean below. I followed him into the room and saw, on two matching white sofas, Annika Bardsdale and a woman I recognized as Martine Shorne, sitting opposite each other with a bottle of wine between them. Annika had been saying something but when she saw me, she stopped and rose from the sofa. I smiled at her and she walked over and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She held the back of my head and looked into my eyes.
“Gabriel told me about what’s happened to Mariko. I’m so sorry, but you must know that we’ll do everything in our power to bring her home safely.”
I smiled back at her, returning her hug. “Thanks. I know.”
Martine stood up and came over to us. She waied and Gabriel walked to her side, putting his arm around her.
“Mark, this is Martine, or Marty as she likes to be called. She’s the love of my life.” When he said this she looked up at him and with a hand steered his head so that she could kiss his cheek.
I stepped over to her and held my arms out. “That makes you my sister, Marty.” She smiled and hugged me. I was struck by how beautiful she was compared to the image that UNPOL had issued of her. We stopped hugging and Marty sat down on the sofa with Gabriel. I sat on the opposite one with Annika on one side and Maloo on the other side of me.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t move sooner to bring this meeting around but we needed you away from the heavy surveillance you were under. Sir Thomas is watching you like a Hawk, if you’ll forgive the pun, and we couldn’t move. When I saw that you were meeting Annika in Melbourne I thought it better just to wait. This is home ground. We have a lot of resources we can call upon here and practically none up in New Singapore. Anyway I’m sorry, this last week must have been hell for you.”
“Don’t apologize. I understand. And yes, it’s been rough. What about this meeting though, won’t UNPOL have picked up on my disappearance?”
Gabriel poured me a glass of wine. I took a gulp to wash away the lump in my throat. He smiled at me, like he knew what I was thinking.
Elbows on his knees, Gabriel leant forward on the sofa.
“No. Right now you’re in the Hilton on the Park with Annika and you’ll be in her room ordering room service tonight after the two of you have spent all evening talking. Then you’ll spend all of tomorrow making love, after which Annika will return to London. As for you, that will depend upon what we decide to do. Sir Thomas kidnapping Mariko, is that because he’s blackmailing you to do something?”
“No. Not exactly. The night before he kidnapped Mariko, I joined the Hawks. He asked and I accepted. But right after I accepted he said I had to prove my loyalty to him by killing someone. I asked him who. And he said just anyone — it doesn’t matter.”
Annika gasped. “This is incredible. This man is UNPOL Director! What kind of a world are we living in?” Shaking her head she got up and walked to the windows facing the ocean.
“I take it you said you would kill someone?” Gabriel asked me in a low voice.
“Sure, what choice did I have? He had two bodyguards in the living room with Mariko. If I had said no after what he’d just told me I’m pretty sure we would have been killed right then.”
Gabriel nodded. “I’m sure too. No, you did the right thing. Does he suspect anything about us?”
“I don’t think so. I think he thinks that he’s training me by doing this. Or maybe I’m just being hopeful, but I think he’s showing me how to be ruthless. It fits with ways in which he has interacted with me in the past. Anyway, I doubt that he’s harmed Mariko, that is if he still believes that I know nothing about you other than what he has told me. I am worried about Cochran doing a mind probe on Mariko or Truth Treatment.”
“Cochran’s not in New Singapore. She’s been visiting each of the bomb sites. Every city where a bomb attack has taken place is now under martial law. UNPOL Special Ops teams have been placed in force at each location. They’re getting ready to make their move and Cochran’s not due back in New Singapore until next Monday.”
I nodded, relieved. One less thing to worry about.
Gabriel went on, 'When do you have to kill someone by?”
“By Valentine’s Day. Ironic isn’t it? I wonder if he didn’t choose the date deliberately.”
With a wry smile, Gabriel said, “He might have done. He’s certainly sadistic enough to take pleasure in such details.”
Which increased my worries. “So, what about the chances of Sir Thomas putting Mariko through Truth Treatment?”
“There was a chance that he might have used it straight away, but we’re sure you would have been picked up or killed if he had done. As you haven't, it's probably because loyalty, trust and honor are crucial qualities between Hawks. It's a matter of honor for him to trust you now until you prove otherwise. It would certainly risk your loyalty to him if he questioned your lover behind your back without a valid reason.”
“What about Cochran next week? I doubt she's any scruples about doing a mind probe. Though I have coached Mariko in how to avoid dangerous thoughts.”
“Now you're a Hawk, you are a rival to Cochran,' Gabriel said. 'I think Sir Thomas would prefer to play those cards close to his chest as yet so I doubt he'll give Cochran access to Mariko. Either way, we have a bit of time to work with.'
Giving a shrug, Gabriel glanced at the other conspirators and changed tack. 'All right, let’s sum up where we are. Sir Thomas doesn’t yet suspect you know the truth about me, Mark. He doesn’t know where we are or who we all are, so those are things in our favor. Against us is we still don’t know anything about how to prevent the toxin from killing people and how they’re hiding it in the tags. And it looks like we’re not going to find out until the Tag Law is passed. We don’t know where Mariko is being held, and if Mark doesn’t kill someone within eight days then Mariko will probably be killed. We also have to consider that Cochran may attempt a mind probe on Mariko within the week, and that might lead to her and Mark being killed. Would you agree with that summary of where we are now?”
Gabriel sat back on the sofa and looked around the room at each of us in turn. I exhaled heavily and Maloo put his arm around my shoulder.
“Don’t ya worry, mate. Gabe’s gotta tell it like it is but we’ll fix this fucka for ya, don’t ya worry.” He looked over at Annika and said, “Pardon my French, Ms Bardsdale.”
Aniika flashed a grin at Maloo. “I don’t think that was French, Maloo, and I agree. We will fix this fucker.”
Maloo burst out with a bark of a laugh and I had to grin too.
“I’m serious,” Annika said, smiling. “I know some pretty high-level people and they would be horrified to find out this is going on. They’d move fast to stop it too.”
I looked at her and said, “I’m pretty sure that Sir Thomas has got Secretary General Deng, either with him or being manipulated by him. That’s high-level. Without evidence, rock-solid evidence, anyone going up against Sir Thomas at this point would just be putting themselves on a list for execution.”
Gabriel leant forward and picked up his wine glass. He said, “We’ll have to use every resource we’ve got in an orchestrated plan if we’re going to succeed. I think the big question we have to ask ourselves is: do we have enough to stop the Tag being voted in?”
“I don’t think that we do. Even if we exposed Sir Thomas and all of the conjecture that we have about Tag, even if Sir Thomas was out of action, Tag would still go ahead. Once the cull is completed, they’d just release Sir Thomas. The question isn’t about whether we can legally stop Tag, because let’s assume we can’t. The real question is how do we stop the cull happening and at the same time make sure it can’t ever happen? Once we’ve done that we can then work on getting rid of Sir Thomas. Or maybe if we’re lucky, we can kill two birds with one stone.” Gabriel raised his eyebrows and shrugged at me. Maloo rolled his eyes.
“OK, OK, enough with the bad puns.” Gabriel's moment of levity passed, and he shook his head. 'Seriously, this guy is dangerous and clever but he’s not infallible — no one is. Enough things start going wrong and he’ll make a mistake. We just have to be there when it happens. He’ll be at his weakest when the Tag has been distributed. Once released, we can get a hold of it and set Maloo to work on it.”
I looked at Maloo. Gabriel said, “Maloo’s got a PhD in bio-engineering from Sydney uni.”
I tried to mask the surprise I felt but Maloo saw right through me. With a big grin, he said, “Had ya fooled, didn’t I, mate?”
Gabriel laughed but then his look turned somber again. “The problem with this approach is that it means we
