The Undercurrent

by Paula Weston

  ‘James Clay Xavier.’ The Major gives her a flat smile. ‘He’s not even on your radar, is he?’

  ‘A photo would help.’

  The Major doesn’t move.

  ‘Don’t be a dick, Voss,’ Angie says. ‘Khan might have information and we need all the help we can get.’

  ‘You might. We don’t.’

  ‘Do you know who hired those mercenaries? No? Then I guess you do.’

  The Major inhales slowly. Exhales even slower. ‘Walsh,’ he says finally. ‘Get the PF6 file from my office.’

  Ryan’s up from the floor and out the door without a backwards glance. Jules is stuck on the Major’s words as the door clicks shut. PF6. If PF is for Paxton Federation, maybe six is the number of private contracts the army has taken with them. Was PF1 the mission that sent her father to that desalination plant in Pakistan? Or were there contracts even before that?

  Khan touches the butt of the gun holstered at her ribs. She studies Jules, shakes her head and turns away. It hollows Jules out a little more. Waylon and French sip their tea in silence.

  Ryan returns five minutes later, a fat manila folder tucked under his arm and his T-shirt patterned with raindrops. He hands the file to the Major and exchanges a look with Waylon that Jules can’t decipher. The Major slaps the folder onto the pool table and flips it open, pulls out a page.

  ‘That’s him?’ Angie takes it and holds it away from her, as if the distance will help. ‘Someone needs to tell him the man bun’s been gone for a decade. Do you know this guy?’

  Khan doesn’t need to touch the photo. ‘He’s high on our list for Wednesday but we haven’t been able to charge him. The CCTV in Queen Street went down when the truck hit so we’ve only got media footage to go on. It’s patchy at best.’

  ‘What name do you have?’ Waylon asks.

  ‘James Clay Xavier.’ Khan’s unapologetic. ‘I wanted to be sure we were talking about the same person.’

  ‘What’s your intel?’

  Khan glances at the thickness of the army file. ‘We know he dropped off the radar after being arrested at an anti-nuclear rally three years ago. No job, no Centrelink file, no bank accounts.’

  Jules runs her fingertips across her palm, still warm from the current. ‘Can I see him?’ she asks quietly.

  Angie brings the photo to her, turning it around when she gets close. The image is slightly grainy and the guy’s hair is different but she knows exactly who he is. Coldness creeps over her.

  ‘Do you know him?’ Angie asks, surprised.

  Jules meets her mum’s gaze when she answers.

  ‘He’s the guy who threatened me in the lab.’

  21

  The first glass of whisky goes down a little too easily. He takes his time on the second.

  The Major is alone in his office picking over the PF6 file again. The only light in the room is from the lamp bent over his desk like a curious bird. A moth flutters in and out of the glare, crashing into the bulb.

  Waylon and Walsh are sleeping and French is on watch. Khan called for a ride into Brisbane an hour ago, but only after photographing the Major and his credentials and threatening to have him arrested if the De Marchis weren’t there in the morning. Angie and Julianne are in the spare bunks next to the kitchen.

  Given what the Major now knows, he probably should have found somewhere more secure. He’s never seen anything like it: the girl’s a walking defibrillator.

  Why wasn’t her complete skill set included in the intelligence compiled for this job? Either the army doesn’t know about Julianne De Marchi, or it does and the Major isn’t in that circle of trust. Which would piss him off enormously, especially if Michael De Marchi was part of an earlier incarnation of Operation Resilience. Not to mention it would have been handy to know Julianne’s full capabilities before he sent Walsh into Pax Fed Tower last week.

  The Major takes another sip of whisky. He’s got operational decisions to make and he needs to make them before the rest of SECDET Q18 return at 08:00.

  The face on the desk goads him from half a dozen photos. The Major has long suspected Xavier was more than a protester with a chip on his shoulder, but a stalker and a blackmailer? He walked into a public school and spooked Julianne into showing her hand. Twenty-two kids were injured in the explosion. Was that planned or unforeseen collateral damage? Either way, Xavier knew enough to take a camera and use the footage to drive Angie from the Agitators, giving him free rein to take over the group and redirect Agitator anger to deadlier violence. It’s a lot of effort for a lone radical.

  He spreads out the photos. The set of Xavier’s shoulders, the calculating stare, they’re the same in every surveillance shot, whether he’s working the crowd at a protest rally or climbing out of the Agitators’ dust-caked bus. There’s no trace of self-doubt about him.

  The Major thumbs through the file again, his mind working. Does anyone at Pax Fed know Xavier’s blackmailing Angie? There’s a link between the Agitators and the company—Peta Paxton admits it or at the very least acknowledges someone on her side is leaking information to the group. Without an insider, there’s no way Wednesday’s attackers could have known Julianne would be in the building.

  The Major had wanted Angie back in the Agitators mostly to help Waylon’s infiltration, partly to see if she had the influence to redirect that ragtag mob away from further violence. But that was before he knew there was a connection between her and Xavier. Before he saw the effect that piece of news had on Angie. Now he’s not sure if she can stay focused long enough to be of use.

  His bigger concern is the tactical assault unit they encountered tonight at the De Marchi house. He knows those guys. They were part of Z12 before the unit was decommissioned fifteen months ago. He’d heard rumours half the squad had turned merc but had assumed that meant foreign contracts, not domestic.

  It hasn’t taken long for this job to get messy. Big fucking surprise. He throws back the rest of the whisky.

  By the time he’s re-read the file it’s close to midnight and the rain is all but gone. The night is noisy with cicadas and he almost doesn’t hear the knock when it comes.

  ‘Sir, it’s Walsh.’

  ‘Enter.’

  Walsh opens the door and steps in, looks sheepish. ‘Sir, she insisted.’

  Angela De Marchi steps around him. ‘We need to talk.’

  Walsh is barefoot and bleary-eyed, wearing nothing but a pair of old footy shorts. Obviously well into his sleep cycle when Angie came calling. He should have sent her back to her room but no, he brings her here. Bloody teenage boys. It doesn’t matter how well you train them, they never know how to say no to a demanding woman.

  ‘Dismissed, Walsh.’

  Walsh ducks his head and disappears.

  The Major gestures to the chair across his desk. Angie sits down, watches him sweep together the PF6 file and tuck the pages back inside the folder. Long hair falls from a loose knot on her head and there’s a pillow crease on her cheek, but her eyes are alert. She’s come to him in trackpants and a fitted singlet that highlights every dip and curve of her breasts. He can’t tell if that’s intentional, but he hasn’t missed that she still wears her wedding band.

  ‘At least now I know why you didn’t call me after the watch-house,’ she says.

  The Major leans back, tries to read her mood. ‘I didn’t think you’d go for a bloke in uniform. I was off the mark there.’

  A tight smile. ‘You lied about who you were. The uniform wouldn’t have come into it.’

  Outside, the cicada chorus intensifies. The Major wonders how much she recalls from that night. He remembers the way she paced the cell like a wild cat, snarling at the cops until even the drunks and addicts cringed away from her. And then the lights went out and he found her in the corner, fuming and vulnerable. They’d been in the same paddywagon, so she didn’t question it when he sat with her. They talked about the protest and the injustice of the Syrian refugee crisis, and complained about the cold until th
e duty cop tossed a couple of scratchy blankets into the cell. His job was to get intelligence on the protesters’ next target, but he lost focus the instant she slipped onto his lap and pulled the blanket around them both. She kissed him. In his memory, she tastes of Mentos and pear cider.

  ‘You know why Jules is the way she is, don’t you?’ she asks.

  The Major picks up a paperclip, pushes it out of shape with his thumb. ‘I’m a soldier, Angela, not a geneticist.’

  ‘But you’d know if there were trials involving infantry in the field.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can tell you.’

  ‘Because you don’t know or because it’s classified?’

  ‘The end result’s the same, isn’t it?’

  Angie props her knees on the edge of his desk. She probes the bandage on her arm, winces a little. ‘I’m not leaving this room unless you tell me what you know.’

  The Major sets his glass to one side. It’s obviously a thing with her: the need for conflict. She eyes him. He gives her the moment and then he straightens the paperclip and sits forward.

  ‘I don’t know why Julianne can electrocute people.’ It’s the truth. His own body is testament to the advances of science, but he didn’t know genetic manipulation like hers was even possible. ‘You must have found out something over the years. Doctors, tests?’

  ‘I couldn’t dig too deep without drawing attention to Jules.’

  ‘Bullshit, Angela, you’re an investigative journalist.’

  She tilts her head. ‘Do you have kids, Voss?’

  ‘No.’ Two ex-wives. No kids.

  ‘Then you won’t get it.’

  ‘Humour me.’

  She blows out her breath and slides lower in the chair. ‘You have no idea what it’s like watching your clever, happy kid withdraw from the world because she’s scared of herself. Mike figured out she could earth the charge when it got too much, and that helped for a while. But every time it got away from her she’d pull back from her friends—us too, sometimes. Mike was the only one who could talk her around, move her past the fear. He was always there for her—until the day he wasn’t. I’ve tried to fill the void but I’m no replacement for her dad.’

  For a second the Major sees beyond the bluff and the snark, the hint of a softer shape.

  ‘And then that fucker turned up at her school.’

  The Major taps the paperclip on the desk. ‘Who told Xavier about her?’

  ‘I don’t know, Voss. Don’t you think I would’ve done something about it by now if I did?’

  The Major splays his fingers on his desk. ‘I’m in two minds about sending you south with Waylon.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, I’m in two minds about going.’

  He doesn’t believe her for a second, not after her reaction last night, but he lets it play out.

  ‘For the last two years I’ve been living under the threat of that footage being released if I go near the Agitators—and you want me to front up to an Agitator rally under the nose of the prick who’s blackmailing me?’

  ‘It’s a risk whether he’s there or not. Your call. We’ll do what we can to block him uploading or sending data files—that’s the best I can offer. But if I allow you to go with Waylon you have to keep your head.’

  She sucks her lips in between her teeth until they turn pale. They spring back with a sound like a soft kiss. ‘How credible is the threat to the nuclear plant?’

  ‘Credible enough.’

  Angie lifts her eyebrows, waits.

  ‘Our intel points to an attack this weekend.’

  ‘By the Agitators?’ she asks in disbelief.

  ‘We’ve picked up chatter about explosives headed for the Anti-Nuclear Assembly. Xavier and the Agitators are on their way to the same location. Join the dots.’

  ‘So arrest him and stop this madness before it gets out of hand.’

  ‘We don’t have enough on him and neither do the feds. We need to know who he’s working with. You drive him off too quickly and the whole lot of them will go underground.’

  ‘What makes you think the sight of me won’t do that anyway?’

  ‘We’ve been watching him for a while. He thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. He’ll want to know why you’re back—even more so if he’s your blackmailer—and he’ll probably reach out to whoever’s pulling his strings. We’ve never been close enough to get personal surveillance tech on him. That’s Waylon’s job. Yours is to fast-track Waylon’s integration to undermine Xavier’s grip on the group.’

  Angie looks past him to the whiteboard, to the aerial maps of the nuclear plant and radioactive waste storage silo. She lets out her breath and her attention settles on his glass. ‘Got another one of those?’

  The Major opens his bottom drawer and pulls out the bottle and spare tumbler wedged between the personnel files. He pours Angie two fingers of whisky, slides the tumbler across the worn timber desk. She rolls it around on its base—her nails are plain, short and chipped—but doesn’t take a drink.

  ‘I’m not leaving Jules behind.’

  ‘You’re not taking her with you. Too risky.’

  ‘Why is that more risky than sending me in?’

  ‘What if he does more than threaten her this time?’

  Angie lifts her glass and lowers it again. ‘I notice you’re not concerned about him hurting me.’

  The Major can’t pick if she’s genuinely offended or not. ‘Waylon will have your back.’

  ‘And who’s looking out for Jules? I’m not leaving her on this base and she can’t go home. I’ve talked to Vee—’

  ‘Who gave you a phone?’

  ‘Ryan.’

  Walsh. Bloody hopeless. ‘Who’s Vee?’

  ‘Veronica Ng. A friend.’

  He remembers the name from Angie’s file. She’s tied up with the Defence Department’s Science and Technology Group.

  ‘She wants Jules to stay with her.’

  ‘Does she know what Julianne can do?’

  Angie measures him for a long moment. ‘No.’

  She’s a bad liar.

  ‘There’s another option,’ he says.

  ‘I’m all ears.’

  The Major takes a slow sip of whisky and tells her. It’s a lot more risk than he’d usually consider but he has a narrow window if he’s going to get Angie back in with the Agitators before they roll out to South Australia. Angie absorbs the plan. When she finally lifts the glass to her lips, he knows she’s in.

  ‘It’s not the worst idea.’ She knocks back the drink in one hit. ‘But Jules is going to hate it.’

  22

  ‘Are you serious, sir?’

  ‘When was the last time I made a joke, Walsh?’

  Ryan blinks. ‘Never, sir.’

  It’s 06:00 and the Major has them assembled in his demountable office: Ryan, Waylo and Frenchie are standing at attention along the wall, hands clenched at their sides; Angie and Julianne sit in steel chairs with their backs to them. Outside, the first flush of dawn stains the sky. Ryan feels oddly out of sync. He’s heavy with sleep and a good two steps behind the conversation. He checks how Julianne’s faring. She’s wearing the same T-shirt and jeans she had on last night; the shirt’s out of shape and she’s trying to force it to sit straight, stretching it in one direction and then the other when she thinks nobody’s watching.

  The Major is seated at his desk, waiting for Ryan to accept the news.

  ‘You’re granting my leave,’ he manages.

  ‘I thought you wanted to see your family?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Officially, that’s what you’re doing. Unofficially, you’re on the clock.’

  Ryan shares a quick glance with Waylo and Frenchie. Maybe they’re keeping up. Nope—blank looks there too.

  ‘Orders, sir?’

  The Major nods at Julianne. ‘Keeping your house guest safe.’

  Ryan frowns, uncomprehending.

  ‘You’re taking her to South Australia.’

 
‘Ah—’

  ‘No, he’s not,’ Julianne says and turns to her mother for backup.

  ‘Yeah, Jules, he is.’

  Understanding dawns for her the same time it does for Ryan: the Major and Angie made this decision without them.

  ‘You’re unbelievable,’ Julianne says to her mother.

  ‘For wanting to keep you safe?’

  ‘For agreeing to any of this without talking to me.’

  Angie swivels sideways to face her. ‘What’s to talk about? I’m getting on that bus with Waylon today. I can’t take you with me and I’m not leaving you behind. Ryan’s family is east of Port Augusta. You’ll be close by and out of immediate danger while we sort out what’s going on at the Anti-Nuke Assembly.’

  ‘We agreed I would stay with Vee.’

  ‘It’s not a negotiation, Jules. This is the only way to keep you safe.’

  ‘Since when do you trust anyone in the defence force?’ She gestures to the Major. ‘You think his priority is your safety? You told me this morning there’s a risk Xavier wants to set off a nuclear meltdown. Why would you want to be anywhere near that?’

  ‘The plan is to stop it.’

  ‘Julianne,’ the Major says. ‘Private French and I will shadow your mother and Waylon. We won’t let anything happen to her.’

  Frenchie shifts her weight and Ryan knows his mate’s shitting herself at the pressure of a one-on-one assignment with the Major.

  ‘And I get no say in this?’ Julianne folds her arms.

  ‘I don’t know how else to protect you. Come on, Jules, it’s a paying job. I thought you’d be happy.’

  ‘Don’t make this about money. It’s hardly a long-term solution.’

  ‘It might be if I can get out from under the blackmail and take back the Agitators. You could go to uni—’

  ‘The Agitators have no corporate sponsors left, no online advertisers. Who’s going to pay you to run campaigns for a suspected domestic terrorist organisation?’

  ‘I can turn things around.’

  ‘How? I’m a liability for you and anyone who gets near me.’

  ‘Jules—’