by A. A. Bell
The group split up, Lanky and Tank heading for the roof to start their search of the hotel from the top down. Babyface and Beachbabe headed across the road to the classier hotel where the financiers were staying, with orders to delay them until notified of an all clear.
‘This way,’ Kitching said, leading Lockman towards the fire exit. Bug-eyes and Scar-chin followed that far too in order to check the perimeter and search along the piers.
Lockman was surprised they didn’t go out a different way. ‘With respect, sir,’ he said, ‘wouldn’t it be faster to secure the perimeter by sending two men forward to the street as well as out the back way?’
‘Keep up and you might learn something,’ Kitching barked. ‘If Hawthorn was sick or injured anywhere near the front of the building, someone would have reported it by now.’
Lockman nodded but felt unsettled as he followed the others through the fire exit door, past a side door to the restaurant’s kitchen and outside into the rear alley. Dark, with an exit at each end and enough parking space for three large trucks, the service area and loading bay were lit only by a small floodlight over the fire exit door, and another above the large sloping lid of an industrial rubbish bin.
Lockman’s keen eyes spotted a dark shape in the shadows on the far side of the alley. ‘Man down!’ he called, and glanced in all directions before jogging to the motionless shape. He turned the body over. No need to double-check for a pulse, since a portion of Hawthorn’s neck clung to the wall above him. He checked for a pulse anyway. ‘Dead.’
‘Man down,’ Bug-eyes reported into his comms unit. ‘Operatives five and six, stay with the candymen. One and two, rendezvous a.s.a.p. at northwest end of sideshow alley. And bring a show bag.’
Lockman knew that was code for a body bag.
Legs surrounded him like the bars of a jail. He peered through them, looking for danger — then sensed it was already upon him.
‘You seem pretty calm for a kid who just found his first stiff,’ Scar-chin commented lightly.
‘It’s not my first,’ Lockman replied. ‘I’ve done two tours in sandy hellholes.’ He searched the body and discovered Hawthorn’s weapon, watch and fake ID were all missing, while a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches were still in his shirt pockets. ‘Strange,’ he added. ‘The sarge didn’t smoke. He’d given up on them.’
‘Search the area,’ Kitching ordered. ‘Lockman, you start at the bin. The rest of you, pick a corner and we’ll work in towards each other.’
Lockman gave a swift salute and jogged to the bin, which he discovered to be empty except for a cracked cooking pot and a scattering of prawn shells. Emptied before the murder, he guessed. Otherwise, the rubbish truck driver would have caught sight of the body in his lights and the alley would have been crawling with civilian police by now. Likewise if any boaties had walked through the alley on their way to the public shower facilities.
Lockman dropped the lid closed with a heavy clang, startling a cat that growled at him. He leaned down to check behind the bin and saw the feline hiding there.
‘Easy, Mama,’ he said kindly.
‘What’s there?’ Kitching called. ‘What have you found?’
‘Just an alley cat.’
She moved and then he did see something; a plastic bag with a small handgun inside. He reached in to shift the cat so he could identify the make and model without touching it, but the cat attacked, scratching his hand.
Lockman recoiled as she bolted past him.
Kitching jogged up behind him, summoning the others. ‘What’s that, Private? What are you trying to hide back there?’
‘Hide? I’m not trying to hide anything, sir.’ Lockman pointed at the bag. ‘I just found that.’
‘Well, fetch it out!’
‘Sir, this is a crime scene.’
‘That was an order, son.’
‘But, sir, what about fingerprints?’
‘A court martial’s a bigger worry for you right now.’
Lockman frowned but obeyed.
‘Now set it down on the bin with your sidearm and step away.’
‘Sir?’
‘I distinctly saw you hide that bag down there.’
‘Sir, I did not!’ Lockman set down the bag as instructed but didn’t make a move to reveal his weapon.
‘You should have been a little more subtle,’ Kitching said, ‘when you questioned my search tactics. You probably shouldn’t have been so swift to spot the body in the shadows either, or made that noise when you tried to hide the evidence.’
‘Sir, that was a cat! It scratched me — look!’ He showed them his hand, now red with three parallel marks, and he recognised the similarity with the ones he’d seen earlier on Kitching’s wrist. ‘Colonel, may I see your left hand, please?’
Kitching reached inside his dinner jacket, as if for a gun, and in reflex, Lockman drew his own — then froze, realising too late that Kitching had only drawn out a digital camera.
‘Down! Down!’ shouted Scar-chin and Bug-eyes as they trained their own weapons on Lockman. ‘Drop it now, Private!’
‘I’m down!’ Lockman said, but he moved slowly, not wanting to startle anyone into shooting him. ‘This is a mistake!’ He allowed gravity to curl his Glock around his trigger finger, then lowered it quietly onto the industrial bin.
‘Drawing a weapon on a superior officer,’ Kitching said, ‘that’s a court martial offence by itself.’ He noddedto his men as a signal to arrest him and took a photo of Lockman beside the bin and the bag of evidence.
‘Hands on head,’ Scar-chin ordered. ‘Now!’ He rammed Lockman’s stomach with the butt of his Magnum. ‘Kiss the bitumen!’
Lockman doubled over and a second blow to the back of his head dropped him faster. His lip split against the ground as a steel-tipped boot kicked his ribs as a warning to stay down.
Through his swiftly swelling eye, he saw Lanky and Tank burst out of the fire exit door with a body bag. They spotted him too and jogged over.
‘Situation?’ asked Lanky.
‘Hawthorn’s over there,’ Kitching said. ‘Shot once through the neck. Seems his killer had the cheek to call it in.’
‘Check the colonel’s hand for scratches,’ Lockman pleaded.
Another kick to his ribs promised more pain if he didn’t keep his mouth shut.
‘I will need to check your hands, sir,’ Scar-chin said, ‘if only to prove how full of shit he is.’
‘No problem, Sergeant.’ Kitching turned his back to the light and presented his hands for a cursory inspection, rolling them over swiftly one way, then the other.
‘Clear,’ Scar-chin reported.
‘Up his sleeve,’ Lockman said. ‘On his wrist!’
‘You’ll get your hearing,’ Kitching said. ‘Clean up here, gentlemen. I have to get back to the show with the docs and the candymen, so I don’t want anything left out here to worry civilians. And I want two of you to haul this bag of shit back to Sandy Creek for interrogation; use all the old favourites. He killed one of our own and we need to know why. Or at least, who he’s working for.’
Bug-eyes nodded and raised Lockman’s head off the ground by his ear.
‘I’m innocent!’ Lockman said, spitting blood.
‘Save it for Sandy Creek,’ Bug-eyes replied. ‘Nightie-night.’ He winked, and the last thing Lockman saw was a fist.
TWENTY-SIX
Van Danik snatched two of their heaviest bags from the shower cubicle and handed the two smaller briefcases to Zhou.
‘We can’t take these to the meeting,’ Zhou complained.
‘We can’t take them back to the room either. If our kid commando’s precautions turn out to be justified, they won’t be safe. Or worse,’ he joked, ‘we’ll never hear the end of it from him.’
‘What about reception?’ Zhou said. ‘Every hotel has a cloakroom that’s guarded like a vault.’
‘Agreed, but to be doubly safe, we should take different routes.’ Van Danik patted his stomach. �
�After two chocolate bars, I’m dying to be a stairmaster. So you take the elevator and I’ll meet you in the foyer. ‘
Zhou nodded.
Van Danik opened the door cautiously to check the corridor. No sign of anyone, not even the two men who’d been pounding the treadmills.
‘Okay, you first.’ He ushered Zhou into the hall and kept watch over him until he’d entered the lift. Then he headed for the nearest fire exit. As he was openingthe next door he heard boots coming swiftly up the stairs towards him.
‘They’re doctors and they’re unarmed,’ said a gruff male voice, out of sight. ‘They’ll come quietly or they can argue with this.’
A second male laughed.
‘Meatheads,’ Van Danik muttered. He peered over the rail and caught a glimpse of them: two men dressed as hotel staff but both carrying handguns.
He ducked into the gymnasium to hide and listened as they passed him by, heading for the women’s toilets.
Glancing over his shoulder, he noticed the railing beyond the pool which Lockman had described as their plan B escape route. Don’t be paranoid, he thought, Flan As safe enough.
He waited for the two pistol-packers to enter the toilets, then made a dash for the fire exit.
‘They’re what?’ Kitching demanded. He turned his back to the other hotel guests in the foyer and clamped the comms earpiece closer to his ear. ‘Have you checked the other cubicles?’
‘Yes, sir, and we’ve checked the men’s toilets, the childcare centre and the gymnasium. They’re not on the sixth floor. Perhaps we should have beaten the truth out of Lockman before we sent him back to base?’
‘Too late for that now,’ Kitching replied. ‘Check their rooms. They can’t have made it far. What’s the status on the candymen?’
‘Candymen secure,’ replied a female voice over the comms net. ‘They don’t suspect any glitches. But they will soon if we don’t make a move towards the rendezvous point.’
‘Understood.’ Kitching scratched his temple, thinking. ‘If you don’t hear from me in five, bring them over and stall them in the bar with pre-dinner drinks.’
‘Just that bag,’ said a familiar voice behind him. ‘I need this one for a meeting.’
Kitching spun around and saw Dr Zhou at the concierge’s desk, checking one of his two briefcases into the cloakroom.
‘Ah! Colonel!’ Zhou called as he spotted him too. ‘Just the man I’m looking for!’
‘Belay those orders,’ Kitching whispered into his comms unit. ‘The quack’s back. Places, everyone. We’ll be proceeding to schedule after all.’
Van Danik slammed the fire exit door behind him and bounded onto the footpath at the front of the Drift Inn. Just as Lockmann had warned, the doors inside the stairwell had been externally locked on every floor, so patrons could flee a burning building while still being safe at all other times from thieves.
Now he had to get back in.
He shrugged the heaviest bag over his shoulder and headed along the footpath towards the main entrance. Three well-dressed ladies and a balding, football-shaped gent were slightly ahead of him and he held back to let them go first.
One of the women, a baby-faced brunette in a silver evening gown, winked and smiled at him as if she knew him. He admired her tanned, muscled back and the sway of her hips as he followed her through the foyer towards the restaurant.
In the adjoining bar, he spotted Colonel Kitching and Zhou. A waitress was serving them with an assortment of pre-dinner drinks. Van Danik waved to them, surprised to see the brunette in front of him wave too.
‘After you, Doctor,’ she said, ushering Van Danik to the front of their group.
‘But … I, ah …’ he stuttered, ‘I have to check my bags into the cloakroom.’
‘I can do that,’ offered her companion, a beach-bronzed blonde who looked equally dazzling in red.
Van Danik clutched tighter onto his bags.
‘Introductions first,’ suggested Colonel Kitching.
‘Colonel,’ Van Danik interrupted. ‘I need to speak with you urgently about two men I saw on the fire stairs.’
‘Not now, Doctor. I’m already aware of your errant bodyguards. They’ve been dealt with.’
‘But, sir, there were two hotel staff in the —’
‘Yes, I’m aware of that,’ Kitching insisted. ‘First things first. Dr Zan Zhou and Dr Mitchell Van Danik, this is Senator Stephan Sloan.’ He gestured to the football-shaped man and waited for each of the doctors to greet him.
‘And this is General Caroline Garland.’
Van Danik’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected the general to be a woman, least of all a handsome, intelligent-looking woman not much older than himself. He shook her hand and stepped back, keeping his mouth shut in case he put his foot in it. He glanced at the two younger women, no longer game to assume they were just fancy-dressed personal assistants.
‘Corporals Lyn Cinq and Karin Sei,’ Kitching said. ‘Part of the general’s personal security team.’
Van Danik laughed. He couldn’t help himself.
‘What’s so amusing?’ asked General Garland. ‘Perhaps you think female bodyguards aren’t up to the task?’
‘No, ma’am … ah, General,’ he stammered. ‘They can guard my body anytime.’
‘It’s far more practical,’ she said, ‘to have a woman follow me into the ladies’ room, wouldn’t you think?’
‘I’m sure it is.’ Van Danik coughed, still trying to disgorge his Sasquatchian foot from his mouth. ‘It’s just their names: Cinq is French for five, and Sei is Italian for six. Makes me wonder if there are another four agents floating around you?’
Kitching raised an eyebrow. ‘Very perceptive of you, Doctor. Perhaps you’d prefer to codename the women Fox and Vixen, and the men as Johnson, Johnson, Smith and Johnson?’
Van Danik shuffled his feet as if shrinking five feet in everyone’s eyes also made him heavier. ‘Sir, the codenames are irrelevant. For that matter, titles and rank aren’t much better. No offence intended. Take “doctor", for example; you’d expect a certain degree of bedside manner, am I right? But it’s Zan here who holds the degrees in real medicine. My fields of expertise are physics and electronics; that’s my excuse for aetinium personality flaws and I’m sticking to it.’
Karin Sei, the brunette, laughed softly and leaned close to him. ‘Does that mean you’re only stable after one hundred and eighty-five days, or that you go off like plutonium and sink like lead?’
He blushed, both startled and charmed by her intelligence. ‘Why, Miss Sei, you’ve nailed me. Although I rarely glow blue in the dark.’
Zhou interrupted with a cough and stepped forward to shake the general’s hand. ‘It’s good to be able to put faces to the finance at last.’
‘Let’s hope you’re worth it,’ Garland replied, her eyes still lingering on Van Danik. ‘Shall we?’
Zhou nodded, fidgeting to ensure that his ears were well hidden by his long hair.
‘Shall I take your bags now?’ asked Corporal Cinq.
Van Danik hesitated, until Kitching reassured him with a nod. ‘They’re heavy,’ he warned, handing them over, but she took their weight as effortlessly as if they were handbags.
‘Shall we take our drinks through to the restaurant?’ suggested Senator Sloan.
A setting for six behind a screen in the darkest corner of the restaurant provided them with space and privacy, as well as an impressive view of an artificial waterfall and lagoon in the courtyard.
‘Colonel, our bodyguards …’ Van Danik began in a whisper.
‘Have been reassigned,’ Kitching interrupted. ‘You don’t need to worry about those incompetent fools anymore. I’m loaning you my own personal guard for the rest of the weekend … Ah, there they are now.’ He pointed through the window into the garden, where two men took up positions on the near side of the lagoon.
Van Danik recognised them from the stairwell and relaxed. ‘I should have guessed.’
Zh
ou took the seat beside Van Danik so they were both facing the senator and the general, and Kitching took the head of the table, with Corporal Sei taking the remaining seat opposite Kitching.
‘Won’t your lovely comrade in arms be joining us for dinner?’ asked the senator with a glance from Cinq to Sei.
‘We’re taking turns, Senator,’ Sei replied with a charming smile. ‘Rest assured we won’t let any of you out of our sight.’ She sauntered off to circulate amongst the patrons in the foyer.
‘To business,’ Kitching declared. ‘Progress report, Doctors; have you achieved the success rate you were after?’
‘Indeed,’ Zhou replied. ‘We’ve achieved infallibility regardless of age, sex, race or state of mind. Anything less and it would have been back to the drawing board — which it was, as you know, many times during the early stages.’
He and Van Danik spent the next ten minutes summarising the results from their worldwide population samples over the last year. In particular they reported on diamond miners in Botswana, terrorist detainees at Guantánamo Bay, military personnel at a Siberian army base, civilian prisoners in an Indonesian jail, astronauts in training for NASA, cadets from the Queen’s Guard in London, Japanese stock market analysts, Australian kindergarten classes, high-school students, handicapped adults and, most recently, blind students.
Van Danik rapped his fork against the table. ‘We even nailed elements from an African nomadic tribe of village raiders and ten families of Eskimos — all through military translators obviously. We didn’t mess around.’
‘And from all of these,’ Zhou said, ‘we can now recommend a handful of individuals who may suit your purposes as public test cases. Firstly, there’s an Afghani goat herder who’s currently being detained at the US facility at Guantánamo Bay on suspicion of terrorism. When first captured with detonator caps and a number of dynamite sticks in his possession, he claimed he’d stolen them from a neighbour to excavate a new cave for sheltering his animals in winter. But since interrogation involved nearly everything from feathers to shock treatment, he’s pleaded guilty to virtually every accusation they’ve thrown at him, from terrorist activities to stealing food out of the bowl of their most vicious guard dog.’