Deadly Trust

by J J Cooper

  ‘And ... who sets to profit most from this public campaign of dumping anthrax onto the community?’

  ‘Security industry,’ Toni said.

  Exactly, Jay thought. Just like he’d hypothesised.

  ‘Exactly,’ Peterson said. ‘A few patented gadgets are about ready to hit the shelves. The biggest winner is the security industry. Massive market for exploitation. Preying on the fears of Joe Public.’

  ‘You’re rambling, detective. What’s that got to do with the Commissioner? He’s in policing, not private security.’

  ‘Not for long.’

  Jay had had enough. He pulled the ambulance to the side of the highway, switched the engine off, and turned to address Peterson. ‘Care expanding?’

  ‘Sure. Three relatively recent patented products relate to the detection of anthrax.’

  ‘Detection devices aren’t a recent phenomenon,’ Jay said. ‘Since the attacks in the US, they’ve popped up all over the place.’

  ‘Not like these.’

  ‘I’ll bite. What are they?’

  ‘They’re innovative and all invented by the same person. One is the size of a watch; and, in fact, looks like a watch. It has an activation alarm and sends a signal back to a base security monitoring unit.’

  Jay shook his head. ‘Just like having a home alarm that sends a signal for a ready reaction force to respond in an instant.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Next.’

  ‘This one is for the party crowd. Like a glow stick. Different sizes even. Can be worn around the neck, wrist or ankle.’

  ‘And when it detects the anthrax it changes colour.’

  ‘And glows.’

  ‘Right. No ready reaction force?’

  ‘There’s probably no need for one. If you’re at a party or a concert and it starts to glow, one would imagine it would cause hysteria.’

  ‘Mass panic. An alarm in itself. The person with the glowing stick would become instantly unpopular.’

  ‘I’d say this would be the cheaper version,’ Peterson said. ‘Suitable for the party crowd.’

  ‘Just like those at the Gold Coast concert where the attack occurred.’

  ‘Bingo.’

  ‘The third?’

  ‘Handheld scanner. Portable, to equip security guards anywhere: airports, sporting events...’

  ‘Concerts.’

  ‘Yes. I’d say probably before the crowd enters the concert.’

  ‘An extra layer of defence. So, something that looks like a watch and is worn like a watch. Probably be able to make it into a fashion accessory. Could wear it virtually anywhere. Big market in an environment where the consumer wants early detection.’

  ‘A big market indeed. So is the glow stick version for rave and dance parties, concerts. It’d definitely be aimed towards a youth audience.’

  ‘And the handheld scanners would accompany hired help at front of just about anywhere. Just adding another line to the queue at the airport.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  Jay turned in his seat and looked at Toni. She was doing something near the assailant that Jay couldn’t see. ‘What are your thoughts on this?’

  She didn’t answer and kept doing whatever it was she was doing.

  ‘Toni?’

  She looked up. An almost startled look in her eyes.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  Jay frowned. ‘The patented items.’

  She gave a confused look.

  ‘The three inventions. Watch, glow stick and scanner.’

  ‘Sorry, I wasn’t really listening.’

  ‘What are you doing back there?’

  ‘Checking vitals,’ she said, almost too quickly. ‘He may be coming to. We need to get driving.’

  ‘Fair enough. Were you actually listening to what we were talking about, though?’

  ‘Yeah. Well, sort of.’

  ‘Great.’ Jay turned back around and fired the ambulance’s engine. He pulled back onto the highway and continued south. He looked into the rear-view mirror. ‘When you finish playing nurse, the good detective here will repeat what he just said for your benefit.’

  ‘That’s very kind of him.’ Toni’s reply was sarcasm in its purest form.

  Peterson chimed in. ‘So you’re from some super secret organisation, tracking bad guys across the globe, and you can’t remember a two-minute conversation.’

  Very good point, Jay thought.

  ‘I’m trying to keep an eye on a person who has tried to kill Jay, and who has no doubt killed many times before. I’m not the one who walked into a set-up and happens to be on the run from one’s own organisation.’

  ‘Again, knock it off, you two,’ Jay said. ‘Let’s just get to wherever we’re going, wake up that clown, and interrogate him over a cup of coffee or two. This place does have coffee, right?’

  Before Toni could answer, an explosive force tore through the ambulance.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Instinctively, Jay’s hands left the steering wheel and reached for his pounding ears. He stole a glance to the left as the ambulance drifted to the right. He locked on his passenger: a dead detective. A bullet had torn the right side of Peterson’s face and made a hasty exit through the windshield.

  Time stood still.

  The ambulance continued to drift.

  Jay turned to Toni. She held the assailant’s arm high and wrestled to unlock a pistol from his grip. The scene appeared animated, unusual, even staged.

  Before Jay could fully comprehend the situation, he was thrown violently to the left. His seatbelt pinned his chest. The ambulance had taken a hit in the front end by a passing truck.

  Pandemonium ensued.

  Glass, metal filings, plastic from the broken dash, and pieces of shattered glass from the front window peppered Jay’s face and torso. Metal scraping tar screamed in his already throbbing ears. He didn’t dare breathe. Didn’t dare open his eyes.

  An eternity later, the ambulance skidded to a halt on its side, driver’s side uppermost. Jay opened his eyes to the dead detective just millimetres from his face. The air had been sucked from Jay’s lungs and he opened his mouth, begging to reignite his battered body. He would have screamed at the sight of Peterson, but the need for air overtook the temptation of the wasted expiration of a scream.

  A pounding on the back of the ambulance barely registered and he had difficulty placing the source of the noise until the heavy rear door smacked against the bitumen and a gust of wind blew in through from behind. His crumpled position, coupled with the vice-like grip the seatbelt now had on him, prevented him turning to the rear. Most of his energy focused on holding his head just above the face of death in the passenger seat.

  Jay felt a tugging at his seatbelt. He looked up towards his crumpled door. Toni straddled the shattered window and was sawing away at the belt with a scalpel. Shit. She was almost through before Jay dug out his hands and braced them above Peterson’s mangled face. Too late. Although he saved his own face from coming into contact with Peterson’s, the release of the seatbelt forced his body to drop. He scrambled to his knees, stepping all over the dead detective in the process. Toni reached down and said something he couldn’t make out. It didn’t matter; he knew she was saying something about getting out. Obvious. Jay pushed her hand away and stood. Again, stepping all over Peterson.

  As Jay poked his head out of the van, Toni jumped down. He squeezed his shoulders through the open window, brushing aside fragments of glass, and locked his elbows onto the doorframe. Using the steering wheel as a foothold, he pushed up. A sea of flashing hazard lights fought for his attention with the glare from the late afternoon sun. A high-pitched call drew his attention back to Toni. She motioned with her hands for him to get out. Something about the urgency of the movements made him react. He pushed hard, scrambled out, landed on his side and rolled off the ambulance. A soft set of hands gripped hard on his shoulder, lifting, or attempting to lift him to his feet. Toni.

  He rolled onto
his back and looked up. Didn’t need to hear to understand what she screamed – run.

  They did.

  It wasn’t exactly the time to be counting strides, but if Jay had been asked how many he had taken before the ambulance exploded, he probably would have guessed around twenty. The sort of thing one doesn’t consider when running for your life.

  The force of the explosion lifted them both off their feet and sent them hurtling through the air. Years of practice instinctively took over for Jay. He allowed the momentum to carry him, ducked his head and did a commando roll, landing in a crouching position. He glanced across to Toni, who was a couple of feet to his front. She had undertaken the same manoeuvre. A slight trickle of blood crept from her forehead, but otherwise, you couldn’t tell by looking at her what she had been through. No heavy breathing. Eyes looking around sharply. A predatory sense about her.

  Despite being the fittest Jay had been in his life, his breath came hard.

  Toni stood and grabbed at his arm. He shrugged her off and bounced to his feet. Adrenalin, and a slightly battered ego, had him striding ahead of her to clear the danger zone. They moved across two lanes and leaned against the safety barrier in the middle of the highway.

  Jay checked his hands first. Slight tremble – adrenalin. Not bad. No blood was a good thing. He grabbed at his ears and gave a slight shake of his head. It didn’t help get his hearing back. He ran a hand through his hair and checked. Blood. Not from his head, though. A sliver of glass caught in his hair had nicked his finger. He picked out the shard and wiped his hand on his paramedic uniform.

  After making sure the rest of his body was intact, Jay looked over at Toni. She was going through the same routine. She kept coming back to the cut on her head. An annoying looking bleed, but no real gash.

  Jay bent, clutched on to a pocket in the uniform’s trousers, and ripped it off in one motion. He stepped over and placed it on Toni’s wound. She grabbed at the piece of uniform and mouthed a thank-you. The burning ambulance had her attention. Jay looked over as something detonated in the rear of the vehicle, instantaneously adding a few more degrees of heat to the surrounding area. Two people rushed towards the fire with extinguishers. The heat prevented them getting anywhere near the ambulance and their foam fell well short. Kudos for trying, though, Jay thought.

  ‘You okay?’ he shouted to Toni.

  She nodded.

  A crowd had started to gather at the front of the backed-up traffic. Some looked towards Jay and Toni. Jay gave a wave as if to say they were fine.

  The rumble of a truck pulling in on the other side of the barrier drew Jay’s attention away from the blaze. His hearing had started to return. He turned and noted a tow truck. The driver clambered down, adjusted his cap and looked across to the burning ambulance. He moseyed towards Jay and Toni, drew a pack of cigarettes from a greasy pocket and offered them. Toni waved him off while Jay reached for a cancer stick.

  The tow-truck driver flicked at a Zippo and held out the lighter. Jay lit his cigarette and said, ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Anyone left in there?’ the tow-truck driver asked.

  Before Jay could answer, Toni said, ‘No. Just the two of us. Dropped off a patient in Brisbane a while ago and we were heading back to the Gold Coast.’

  Jay played along, but couldn’t figure out why Toni had said what she did. A detective dead and an assassin still in the back of the ambulance. At least that’s what he thought. Maybe the assassin had escaped before the blaze. He scanned the crowd and then looked back at the burning vehicle. No sign of him. Either way, at least one dead. He knew that for certain. Another dead face to add to his memories. He wanted Toni to explain what had happened. Why was the gun in the back? And how did the assassin get hold of it?

  Toni probably noted the look of Jay and his mood change. She said to the tow-truck driver, ‘The ambulance won’t be going anywhere for a while, but do you see that rig pulled over down the road there?’ She pointed to a truck about a hundred metres down the highway. ‘He’ll need a quick tow. He was the one who clipped us. The driver is probably calling for a tow now.’

  The tow-truck driver didn’t miss a beat. He flicked away his cigarette, hurdled the barrier and didn’t say a word before racing off towards the slightly dented truck.

  After the tow-truck driver was out of earshot, Jay said, ‘What the fuck was that all about? And you can start with what happened in the ambulance.’

  ‘I’ll explain on the way.’ She made to climb over the barrier.

  Jay put a hand across her chest. ‘Now!’

  She looked up and shook her head. ‘There’s a dead detective and a dead CIA assassin in the back of a stolen ambulance that happens to be burning in the middle of a highway. You’re in a paramedic uniform and I’m in a nurse’s outfit. The CIA, among others, wants you dead. They know every move you make. Corruption at the highest levels. You want to take your chances and wait to be killed? That’s fine. You’re a walking target I could do without. You stay. I’m going. Good luck.’ She pushed his hand away and hurdled over the barrier.

  As Toni climbed into the cab of the tow truck, Jay dropped his cigarette to the ground and wondered what the hell was happening. The roar of the tow truck firing up brought him back to reality. He clambered over the barrier.

  Time to run – again.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Toni handled the tow truck like she’d been driving them all her life. Smooth changes of gear and slick on the accelerator to get the maximum out of the powerful engine. They were headed back to Brisbane and she managed to swerve in and out of the light highway traffic with ease.

  Jay adjusted his side mirror. Didn’t appear to be anyone following. Not yet anyway. He kept an eye on the mirror and asked, ‘What happened back there?’

  ‘I had a pistol stashed in the ambulance. I got it out when it looked like he was starting to come to. Which, obviously, he did. I was looking at you and he grabbed at the weapon. As I jerked it up it fired and shot the detective.’

  ‘Simple as that?’

  ‘It’s what happened.’

  Jay took his eyes off the mirror and looked at Toni. ‘After everything that has happened, and if you are who you claim to be, why would you make such a fundamental error?’

  She stole a glance then concentrated back on the road. A determined look. ‘You’re right. An error on my part. I got sloppy and lost concentration. Won’t happen again.’

  It seemed she had an answer for everything. Either she was a brilliant liar or she was telling the truth. Jay couldn’t tell. Never could with women. A flaw that’d been proved in the past, time and again. He’d come to that conclusion after being fooled by a female Mossad agent. Caught up in an espionage ring. After being shot twice, and while recuperating from his bullet wounds, he’d figured out why he had always been too trusting of women. For the first seven years of his life he’d only really known one woman: his mother. And he couldn’t recall her ever lying or tricking him. Never. After his mother’s death, it was just him and his father. With his father being a spy, Jay learned the signs of deception and mastered the art himself. His father had never re-married nor brought another woman into their home. So, despite being able to expertly identify all the signs of deception in men, he could never really master the same level of expertise in regards to women.

  He concentrated on the signs. Carefully looking at her as she drove. Nothing. ‘Why me?’ he asked.

  ‘Told you. The Major got to the others before we could.’

  There it was again – we.

  ‘I mean now,’ he said. ‘The scientist and the Major are dead. You used me to catch your prey successfully.’

  She stole another glance. ‘I did use you, I admit that. But the scientist was only part of the mission. I need to destroy that anthrax. You may have the antibodies.’

  ‘May not.’

  ‘The CIA believes you do.’

  ‘You can drop the CIA bit. I don’t believe it for a second. No motive there at all.’<
br />
  ‘Then why haven’t you rung your dad already? Mobile phone is sitting right there.’ She nodded towards a phone sitting in a mounting kit on the dash.

  Good question, Jay thought. Something told him not to ring his father. Just in case she was right about the CIA hiring an assassin. He rubbed a hand over his chin and checked the mirror again before looking back at Toni.

  ‘What’s their motive?’ he asked.

  ‘A strain of anthrax is out there that only you have the antibodies to combat. Before the scientist was killed, he was after you. When he was unsuccessful the first time, the assassin made his move to kill you. That way the scientist couldn’t develop the antibodies. After the scientist was killed, someone needed to make the antidote.’

  ‘The CIA. That’s why he had the needle in the hospital. Drug me instead of trying to kill me.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Doubtful. Why not ask me to come in and help them out? They knew I would have.’

  ‘You’d have it over them. Technically, you could name your price and hold the world to ransom for your blood. The general public would beg the government to pay if it ever got out. Standard procedure for the CIA. Take what they want and discard the person after they’ve outgrown their usefulness.’

  ‘Or the assassin went rogue?’

  ‘Don’t overcomplicate it. CIA assassins don’t go rogue.’

  ‘That’s if he really was a CIA assassin.’

  ‘That’s an absolute. I know.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I used to be one.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘It’s what I used to do before I saw the light. Changed agencies. Working for the good guys now.’

  ‘An assassin working for the CIA with an Aussie accent.’

  ‘Global reach.’

  Jay shook his head. ‘I thought you said CIA assassins never went rogue.’

  ‘They don’t. They get smart and realise it’s the CIA who is rogue.’

  ‘A bit far-fetched, but humour me anyway. Who exactly is this group you’re now working for?’

  ‘Need-to-know.’

  ‘Kidding, aren’t you? After all that’s happened?’