‘Right, well, here are the keys. The guys are almost done unpacking the truck and I had them arrange everything just like you asked me to. Are you okay to receive the rest of the stuff on your own? It’s just that it’s getting late and I should really be heading home.’
‘What other stuff?’ Matt knew where this was going.
‘Well, I mean, this can’t be all of it. There’s only, like, ten boxes, a plastic army trunk and an old leather chair.’
‘That sounds about right.’
Carl gently punched Matt’s right shoulder. ‘What are you – a serial killer?’ he joked.
‘I could be if you touch me again, Carl,’ said Matt, giving him a fierce look then a small smile as he returned the little tap to the shoulder but four times as hard.
Carl stepped back to steady himself. ‘Right, yes, of course.’ He laughed nervously. ‘Okay, well, the garage is just down there; this is the remote for the roller door and the card for the security access upstairs.’ He presented the remote and card to Matt. ‘The post box is by the front door…What else? Oh, yes – the electricity and water are both on and I’ve sorted out the payment scheme. So, that’s about it, I guess. If you could drop by the office tomorrow, we can have you sign the rest of the documents.’
‘Cool.’ Matt nodded and leaned back against the car.
‘Gee, that’s a sweet ride.’ Carl gazed at the car and whistled admiringly.
‘Thanks, buddy.’ Matt opened the car door and got in.
‘Well, I’ll be off then,’ Carl said. ‘Oh, there’s a great little cafe at the bottom of the building on the other side. It opens really early and doesn’t close till late.’
Matt turned the key in the ignition. ‘Thanks, Carl. I’ll be seeing you, pal.’ He eased the RS4 away from the kerb, and watched in the rear-vision mirror as Carl fumbled for his phone and dropped it in the grass. Matt laughed to himself and manoeuvred around the removal truck and then down the driveway that led into the underground garage.
...
A few minutes later Matt was standing in his new apartment. He looked around at the softly lit, open-plan living area and the adjoining marble kitchen. His old leather chair sat in the middle of the room. Moving down the hall and into the bedroom, Matt admired the removal men’s handy work. Everything unpacked, and folded on shelves, his camouflage military uniforms all hanging in a row on the left of the wardrobe and the polyester formal uniform on the right, boots at the bottom and training gear on the top shelf. He studied the Sherwood green ‘smashed moth’ para wings on the sleeve of the polyester uniform.
I guess I better get used to wearing ceremonials, he thought.
He walked back to the lounge room and slumped into the chair, resisting the urge to go in search of a bottle shop. It was an urge he had been finding harder to resist over the last few days, but he knew nothing good was going to be found at the bottom of a bottle. His phone beeped to signal the arrival of a message and he picked it up and glanced at the screen. The message was from JJ.
How goes it, boss?
Matt ignored the message, choosing instead to stare out the window. The apartment was on the top floor and looked out over the lake. The last rays of sun bathed the tops of the gum trees in the most incredible orange light and hundreds of galahs circled and squawked above before settling for the night. As the sun slipped away, so did Matt, into the type of sleep that helps the mind to make sense of situations that people sometimes have to endure just to get to the better stuff.
...
One week on, Matt ran across the bridge over Lake Burley Griffin and extended his stride. Even at six in the morning the track around the lake was thronged with people trying to reach their own fitness goals. He focused on the same woman he had seen the past few mornings and matched her pace, ten metres behind and closing in. Matt watched as her ponytail bobbed up and down and focused for a moment on her pale orange running tights.
He was beginning to like Canberra. The CrossFit gym around the corner had been a revelation. No one cared who he was or where he was from; he just turned up, trained hard and left, and he was planning to do that every day of his remaining five weeks of leave before starting his new job at army headquarters. He had deliberately avoided calling Rachel, even though he had promised he would. Going to London would only complicate things further, he’d decided. He was probably never going to be able to give her what she wanted. It hurt to recognise that, but he had to be realistic. He’d thought that maybe he could, but if he was really going to commit to being honest with her, that would mean telling her about Allie van Tanken, the Dutch intelligence analyst he’d met during his 2010 deployment to Afghanistan. Not that there was much to tell; they had only just been getting to know each other when she had died so tragically in his arms. He still wondered about the circumstances leading up to Allie’s death at the hands of Steph Baumer, who had then been so promptly whisked away by the US government. The whole affair had been shrouded in a veil of secrecy.
To take his mind off Allie, he focused instead on the woman in front of him. She had just increased her pace. Oh no – not today you don’t, he thought. She had done the same thing the last few days right around the monument and Matt knew she would maintain the new speed for the last five kilometres. She was quick, probably a triathlete, although in Canberra she could also be an Olympic athlete. It was the home of the Australian Institute of Sport, after all. Her tank top showed off the type of muscle definition that you can only get from lifting, and lifting often.
The alarm on his watch started to beep and he already knew what it was going to tell him. His heart rate was reaching the max zone, a hundred and eighty-four beats per minute and climbing. He maintained the pace.
Shit, she’s turning it on today.
His lungs screamed at him to slow down, the faintest taste of blood starting to creep into his mouth, an indication that he was now burning lactate for fuel. Glancing quickly at his watch he saw the pace: three minutes and thirty-five seconds per kilometre. There was no way known she was going to hold this; he certainly wasn’t.
The first kilometre came to a close and Matt’s legs were burning. The pace hadn’t let up and, if anything, Ponytail had pulled ahead by another couple of metres.
The second kilometre clicked over at the same pace and by the end of the third Matt was off in the desert of his own mind, finding the happy place he had been trained to go when pain washed over him. His body was screaming, his watch beeping, his legs burning and vomit threatening. Then his body just quit. He buckled and slowed his pace to just above a walk.
Ah, damn it!
Ponytail looked over her shoulder and smiled at him and then, to add insult to injury, she took the steps of the last bridge two at a time.
Matt chose to walk the last kilometre back to the cafe in his apartment building where he’d had breakfast after his run each day that week.
‘G’day, Matt. Have a seat, cobber, and I’ll bring you the usual: long black and warm cow juice on the side.’ The Australian colloquialisms sounded odd coming from the lips of Bruce, the diminutive Asian waiter. Matt had really warmed to him though. Hearing that strong Australian accent made him laugh. The name made him laugh too: with his jet-black hair worn spiked up, Bruce looked like an extra from a Bruce Lee movie.
‘Thanks, champ.’ Matt took a seat in a plastic orange chair and emptied the contents of his pocket onto the table; iPhone, apartment access card and the money that he had brought to pay for breakfast. The bi-fold doors of the cafe were wide open, merging the early morning with the dining room.
Bruce yelled some instructions in Vietnamese to the staff back in the kitchen, most probably family members, and he then disappeared behind the long glass counter. The kitchen was a hive of activity as they prepared for the day ahead. In two hours’ time, Matt knew, the place would be full of civil servants demanding eggs and coffee, and then at lunchtime half of Canberra would pop in for laksa and pad Thai.
Matt’s iPhone vibrated
and he looked down at the illuminated screen.
You disappoint me, Rix. I didn’t take YOU for one who would set patterns.
What the fuck? Matt thought. He looked quickly around the cafe. He saw a couple who had also been jogging earlier in the morning; they were now lost in each other’s eyes and holding hands across an outside table. A middle-aged man in a well-tailored suit sat in the corner. He was buried deep in the Sydney Morning Herald while sipping his cappuccino. And there was an attractive young woman sitting two tables away with her back to him, dressed in smart casual clothing and focused intently on her laptop. Not your usual public servant – probably a journo or perhaps a blogger.
Usually the cafe was empty at this hour of the morning, but today it was busy. Other than that it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary was going on. No one registered as an immediate threat to Matt. His eyes darted back towards the kitchen and he spied the knife block. That would be his first port of call should an armed threat emerge.
Matt’s phone vibrated again. This time he took notice of the number – it had an international area code.
Want to catch Faisal Khan again? Reach under the table and take the envelope.
Matt scanned the area again, this time looking out to the street. He saw a couple of executive drivers in conversation across the street. Nothing going on there either.
He slipped his hand beneath the table and felt the envelope stuck to its underside. He removed it in one swift motion.
‘There ya go, chief: one long black, warm udder juice on the side. Now, what ya gonna wrap your laughin’ gear around this morning?’ Bruce licked his index finger and flipped open to the next page of his little yellow notebook.
Matt looked up at him, still trying to make sense of what was going on. ‘Huh? Ah, nothing, thanks.’
‘Alrighty.’ Bruce rushed off to clear the table recently vacated by the attractive young journalist.
Matt stared at the envelope. He ruled out explosives, as the envelope wasn’t that thick and wasn’t even sealed. He opened it carefully and saw that it contained airline tickets and a business card. He looked up just in time to see a black Statesman pull up out the front and the journalist jump in before it sped off.
Matt stood, almost knocking the table over. He caught the coffee cup before it fell to the floor.
‘Shit!’ Matt looked around. ‘Bruce? Hey, Bruce!’ Matt resettled the cup on its saucer and stood up ready to go.
‘What’s up, man?’ Bruce walked out from behind the counter, wiping his hands on a tea towel.
‘Was anyone in this seat this morning? Before me, I mean.’
Matt already knew the answer before Bruce replied. ‘Yeah, the lady that was sitting over at that other table. She sat here first for a little bit and then moved to where she could plug in her laptop. Why?’
‘I don’t suppose you know her, do you?’ Matt asked.
‘Never seen her in my life.’
‘No, of course you haven’t.’
Matt looked again at the envelope and took out the first ticket. It was from Canberra to Melbourne, departing that very afternoon. The next was from Melbourne to Dubai and the third and last ticket was from Dubai to Bologna. The flights were all business class.
‘Is something wrong?’ Bruce asked.
‘I’m not sure. At least, I don’t think so.’ Matt frowned at the tickets, his mind racing as he tried to make sense of it all.
‘She was in a bit of a rush, huh?’ Bruce wiped Matt’s table down with the tea towel and then stood back up, looking out to the street.
‘What?’
‘The American girl – she left here quickly, is what I meant.’
‘She was American?’
‘Yeah, I think so, she ordered an Americano and I’m pretty sure she had an American accent.’
Matt took out the business card. It was for a cafe called the Lupo Bianco in a town called Abetone, Italy. He turned it over; there was a message written on the back.
Meet me at 7 am on 17 January if you want answers. Steph Baumer.
Classic CIA espionage 101, Matt berated himself. He had been stalked all week and hadn’t even seen it. He had allowed himself to set a pattern. They had worked him out and set up a contact. The journalist sat side-on to him, her computer camera capturing his image in real time so that Steph could positively ID him before she sent him the text messages. Then, when he was distracted by the envelope, she had slipped away to a waiting extraction vehicle. No doubt there was backup somewhere close by too, just in case he had worked it out before the she could safely exit. Matt recalled the loving couple who had been sitting just outside at right angles to the woman. They were gone now too.
Far out – I just got worked over by the bloody CIA, Matt realised. He was kicking himself. He looked again at the airline tickets and then he looked straight up at the older man who had been reading the paper. They locked eyes and the gentleman got up, nodded his head at Matt and slowly left the cafe. He seemed a lot more suspicious to Matt now than he had before. Was he part of the set-up, or someone else entirely? Someone from his own government, perhaps?
Matt placed twenty dollars under his cup.
‘Gotta go, Bruce. Keep the change, pal.’ With that Matt hurried upstairs to pack. The adrenaline had awakened something within him, something that had been dormant.
It’s time to get some bloody answers from Steph Baumer, he thought. This would be the last time the CIA got the better of him, he swore to himself. Faisal Khan was on the loose, and if he was honest with himself chasing Khan would provide him with some much-needed excitement. And now he had the opportunity to get some answers about Allie. Then, maybe, he would be in a better space to make something of the relationship with Rachel. After all, there was no reason he couldn’t go to London after he was finished in Italy.
7
DELARAM–ZARANJ HIGHWAY, AFGHANISTAN
The suspension creaked and groaned as the old bus bounced slowly along the broken bitumen. The Delaram–Zaranj Highway was the best in Afghanistan, but would be considered dismal by Western standards. The road provided the fastest route from Kandahar to Zabol, but it also meant more scrutiny by security forces. There were US military patrols on every corner, and roadblocks and vehicle checkpoints in every culvert and on every bridge; war planes circled high overhead and Apache helicopters responded to the ground forces’ calls for support. The road was chaos.
The late-afternoon sun beating down on the roof of the bus intensified the foul odour inside, a smell that told of men with questionable bathing habits. Faisal didn’t notice the pungent smell, however; he just sat in silence on the half-shredded vinyl seat of the Toyota Coaster stroking his beard and watching as the scenery slowly went past the greasy window. He hadn’t washed for a few days himself, except for his hands and feet before prayer time.
The bus pulled over in a clear area on the side of the potholed road. It was obvious that this spot was well known to the driver, given the rubbish and empty water bottles that lay around the small desert shrubs. There had been a firefight here recently too, as evidenced by a small pile of machine gun link and empty brass casings. The other travellers, prayer mats in hand, left the vehicle to conduct their rituals. Faisal waited until the last of the passengers got off. He had been listening to the conversations of his fellow passengers and he knew who was going where. Three of the young men towards the back of the bus were heading to Iran. Although they were Sunni Muslims, one of the lecturers at their university had assured them that they would be well received in Iran. He had promised them safe passage in exchange for US dollars, and the students had jumped at the chance to escape the violence in Kabul, which was becoming ever more prevalent on the streets of the capital.
When he was certain that he was unobserved, Faisal went down to the back of the bus where the students’ bags were stowed. He checked the weight of each bag in turn and then, selecting the heaviest of the three, unzipped it. Looking over his shoulder quickly to ensu
re he was still alone, he removed a block of opium about the size of a standard house brick from under his shirt and tucked it in among the clothes. Faisal then reached into his vest pocket and pulled out one of the two mobile phones he had bought at the market the evening before. With this phone, he had rung every number that he could remember and told them all he was free. Then he had turned off the phone and removed the SIM card. Now Faisal turned it back on and shoved it inside a shoe, stuffing a rolled-up sock in after it. Then he alighted from the bus and joined the group at prayer, first washing himself and discarding his own water bottle along with the other rubbish, then facing Mecca to recite the first chapter of the Quran. He continued the ritual and then rolled up his prayer mat. He always felt a sense of relief after prayer. He wanted to keep his mission in the front of his mind and he felt the best way to do that was to keep Allah aware of his feelings and to draw strength from his own faith.
Faisal walked back down the side of the bus with the other men. The driver, standing at the front, caught Faisal’s eye.
‘Are you coming all the way to the border?’ the portly driver enquired of him.
‘Yes.’ Faisal watched as the other passengers boarded. ‘I’m going into Zabol.’
‘What are you running from? Afghanistan herself? The Taliban? The Americans?’ The driver put his cigarette out on the front wheel and flicked the still-smouldering stub into the dirt at his feet. Faisal couldn’t help but be disgusted at the decaying mouth of the driver, his teeth rotting in place.
‘I’m not running, just visiting a brother in Iran; he helps look after a mosque. Afghans can still travel, can’t they? Or would the world rather we just stay in the one place?’ Faisal had known the driver would approach him at some point; they were all on the take. A day ago Faisal had paid him with Iranian rial, suspecting that he would be watching his passengers throughout the trip. The US dollars that his new ISIS ‘friends’ had given him would have led the driver to suspect that he was on the run or a spy, so he had strapped the cash to the inside of his leg. Those in the south of Afghanistan, that had business between the two neighbouring countries, often used the Iranian rial, and so it would draw less attention.
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