by Berry, Tony
‘We understand,’ said Dayani, her voice calm and level, careful to avoid any hint of antagonism. ‘We are all frustrated. We have been here too long and need to leave before it is too late.’
The local Sri Lankans had been welcoming and supportive. They had given them shelter and anonymity until Morales had found them their present bolt-hole. But Dayani knew they were in danger of outstaying their welcome. The killings at the airport would endanger the existence of those who had helped them and who had to sustain their lives as respected members of the community. Duptha was right; it was time to move on and get out. But not with another massacre.
‘We will do it my way,’ she said.
She handed her bowl to CJ and indicated a drinking motion with her hand; she needed water. CJ pushed back against the wall and levered himself upright. He picked up Rani’s bowl from the floor and squeezed alongside Duptha at the sink. He filled a chipped china mug with lukewarm water and handed it across to Dayani.
‘So, what is your way?’
Dayani entwined her fingers, reversed them, extended her arms, hands pushed out in front of her. She relaxed, let her arms rest in her lap. She looked at each of them in turn, assessing their mood, and their support. She felt she was being tested, even challenged. They all knew she was the one who had persuaded Morales to back their operation and activate the dormant Bromo Perkins. She knew there was talk of old ties and unfinished business coming into play; that although the cause was justified there were doubts over how it was being fought. Time was running out.
‘We destroy the base, not the people,’ she said.
‘But—’ Duptha started to interrupt.
Dayani silenced him with a raised arm, palm outward, fingers spread.
‘Hear me out,’ she urged.
The others fell silent. CJ and Duptha leaned back against the sink. Rani stayed slumped on the floor. Suddenly the quiet was broken by the sound of a car coming to a halt outside the flats, its engine still running. They all tensed, eyes flicking from one to the other; anxious, questioning. A car door slammed shut, followed by another. The engine continued turning over. The faint sound of voices drifted upwards. They strained in unison to pick up the sounds. Nothing was clear. CJ sidled over to the window and slowly parted two of the slats on the blinds. He looked down to the concrete driveway, faintly lit by a single street light. He squeezed his eyes in a squint, peering hard to identify the shape of two figures standing against the high fence dividing the driveway from the neighbouring warehouse. They were huddled close together beneath the low overhanging branches of a peppercorn tree, not moving.
‘What is it? Who’s there?’ Dayani hissed across the room.
CJ flapped his hand behind him, urging her to curb her impatience, his eyes remaining focused on the scene below.
‘Shsh! Cut the lights or they’ll see me looking,’ he commanded.
Duptha reached out and clicked the switch.
CJ widened the gap in the blind.
‘That is better. It looks like a man and a woman,’ he reported. ‘It is too dark to be sure.’
In the room behind him there was total silence. Only Rani moved, easing himself into a more upright position, his back pressed against the wall, bending his legs and drawing his knees in towards his chest. The fast-approaching sound of a motorbike reverberated in the narrow street; its headlight beam cast light briefly sideways as it roared past, startling and illuminating the figures in the driveway below. CJ caught a glimpse of one of them, a woman, her round face framed by a half circle of short black hair topped by a dark red beret perched at a jaunty angle. Her head had been resting on her companion’s shoulder. She turned to one side and glanced quickly upward as the motor bike went by.
‘Ah,’ chuckled CJ, ‘that surprised them.'
He took his hand away from the blind and let the slats fall back into place. He grinned at his companions.
‘Relax. It is the woman from the flat next door. She is saying goodnight. It will not take long.’
His prediction proved correct. He had noted the car engine was still running, the flurry of movement as the woman pushed the man’s hand away from inside her jacket, how she had taken a step back and strained upwards to give him a peck on the cheek. No firm embraces, no lingering kisses; just a token clinch and a brushing of lips. A dank dark corner alongside the communal garbage bins was no place for passion.
They heard a car door snap shut, the slight revving of the engine as it cruised off down the streets, the click-clack of the woman’s shoes on the concrete staircase and past their entrance. There was a pause and jingle of metal as she found her keys and turned the lock, the scrape of wood against the ill-fitting jamb and a dull thud as it closed behind her. Everyone in the room relaxed, unaware how tense they had been. Dayani broke the silence.
‘What do we know about her?’
‘Just a neighbour; comes and goes,’ said a nonchalant Duptha. ‘A businesswoman, always with a laptop, Bluetooth phone behind her ear.’
Dayani pushed down hard on the armrests to propel herself out of her armchair. She stood in the middle of the room, legs spread, hands on hips, facing Duptha.
‘Just a neighbour!’ she exclaimed. ‘What do you mean “just a neighbour”? A businesswoman living here? Doesn’t that strike you as unusual, suspicious?’
She knew she was close to boiling point. She worked hard to contain her anger, to control the agitation in her voice.
‘We need to know who she is, where she comes from, where she goes. I thought I told you to check everyone around us.’
Duptha’s shoulders slumped. Dayani’s outburst had deflated his aggressive mood of a few moments before. She waved her arm in the direction of the window.
‘How do we know what she is doing down there in the driveway? Who is the man with her? CJ may like to think it’s all a bit of kiss and cuddle, but we need to be sure. We cannot take any risks. Keep a close watch on her from now on.’
She paused for breath, calming herself down; this was no time to get edgy and fretful. They had to stay focused, without discord. She summoned up a smile and looked at each of her companions in turn and watched them slowly relax. A taut moment had been defused. She clapped her hands together.
‘Come, let us plan. It is time we finalised Operation Sigiriya.’
THIRTY-ONE
THE man settled himself into the driving seat and set the car on a slow roll down Lyndhurst Street. Only slight pressure was needed on the accelerator. From here it was all gently downhill towards the town hall, its illuminated façade and soaring columns framed by the road’s end like an ancient Grecian temple in some exotic son et lumière spectacle.
The man leaned forward and pressed a button on the dashboard. He picked up a headset and earpiece from the seat beside him and slid them into place. A green light glowed. He turned a dial and waited. As he cruised through the intersection with Abinger Street a calm female voice came softly through the headphones.
‘Yes, Steve?’
‘Hi, boss. The package has been delivered.’
There was a break in the stream of prowling night-time traffic on Bridge Road. He pushed his foot down and sped the car across the road and round the corner into Gleadall Street. Delia’s voice was in his ears.
‘No problems?’
He hesitated. His former chief would ball him out over small details. Said he couldn’t be bothered with them. Always cracking on about the big picture. But Delia Dunstan was different; she absorbed and analysed every aspect of a case down to the most minor event. He pulled the car to a halt in the disabled parking zone alongside the post office and set the brake. Delia would want to know.
‘Only a slight delay, boss. It took a bit of time to check out the address.’
‘Good man. Hope you didn’t have to go disturbing the neighbours.’
He smiled at her oblique reference. Caution was always best when using the phone. Intercepts were all too easy these days.
‘Yeah, nosey lot
. Peeping out between their blinds.’
‘Any problems with that?’
He detected a tightening of her voice; a touch of anxiety.
‘Relax, boss. We’re cool. I doubt they could even see us.’
He smiled at the thought of his enforced cuddle. Anya Britt had taken little persuading to get into a pretend lovers’ clinch. She had even seemed to play along with his wandering hand and a couple of pashing kisses. Quite a surprise as the word in the canteen was that she played for the other side. He snapped out of his reverie.
‘Sorry, boss, what was that? Got distracted.’
This time her voice had a hint of impatience.
‘I asked Steve if you were sure the parcel was safely delivered.’
‘Absolutely, boss. No worries.’
He tapped a hand on the dashboard and waited. There were background noises at the other end of the line, taps and clicks, the exchange of voices. With any luck his day’s work was done. For the time being the action would shift to Chateau Chaos, the team’s name for the small suite of offices discreetly located in an anonymous city high-rise. With any luck, he would be free to drive home and fire up his Xbox Kinect for a few hours. The phone crackled in his ear. Delia was back on line.
‘Steve? You there?’
‘Yes, boss. Still parked. Going nowhere.’
‘Thought you’d like to know the customer has been in touch. She was very pleased with her package. Said she was impressed with your service.’
Steve grinned. It was a message that could be interpreted however he chose. Maybe the spunky Anya was not all the others claimed her to be after all.
‘It seems she has put it to good use already,’ Delia added.
Steve shrugged. Perhaps the message was strictly business after all. He knew it was no ordinary laptop Anya had slung over her shoulder. And it seemed Delia wanted to keep the line open. He tried to keep the conversation light and chatty.
‘Nothing like a happy customer,’ he said. ‘Maybe we’ll get some repeat business.’
Delia laughed, playing her part in what any eavesdroppers would take as a bit of innocuous gas-bagging between a couple of workmates.
‘Reckon so. She says she’s aiming to settle in to the area but that address is only temporary and she’s hoping to find somewhere permanent. Apparently those neighbours you mentioned are about to move out …’
She let her voice trail off. Enough information had been put out there. Steve got the message. Anya had set up her box of tricks and was tuned in to the Sri Lankans next door. He knew there would be no Xboxing for him tonight. He would be on duty at Chateau Chaos helping to monitor Anya’s messages and coordinate the team’s next move. The operation appeared to be advancing steadily towards its climax. With any luck all the action would be the real thing ‒ out here on the streets of Richmond and not in front of a plasma screen in the comfort of home. And about time, too. They had all spent far too long on the mundane routine of tracking, monitoring, filing and simply waiting for the right moment to close the net.
He slapped his hand down hard on the dashboard.
‘Yeah, baby, let it happen. Bring it on.’
Delia cut sharply into his outburst of enthusiasm.
‘Down, boy.’
He gulped. Felt like a schoolboy being admonished for a classroom prank. Delia stuck resolutely to her role. Her voice was in no-nonsense mode.
‘There are other customers needing your attention,’ she said. ‘You’d better drop by the office and help sort them out.’
‘Yes, boss. On my way.’
He turned the ignition, reversed out and slid back into the Bridge Road crawl.
THIRTY-TWO
STEVE Maloney got out of the lift on the 16th floor of a downtown office block poised above an arcade of shops and cafes. He turned left along the carpeted corridor and stopped outside a frosted glass door bearing the inscription “SuperVisor StrataGems Inc”. He showed his face to a camera angled down from the low ceiling and fingered six numbers in rapid succession on a keypad alongside the door. Its locking mechanism responded with a faint click and he pushed it open. He stepped into a box-like vestibule and faced another camera, another door and another keypad. He repeated the entry process and waited for the door to swing open.
Beyond was an open-plan office with partitioned work stations, a toilet and shower cubicle and a small but well-equipped kitchen and eating area. Vertical blinds shaded windows that provided views over the city to the bay and, on clear days, to Mount Macedon and the distant You Yang Ranges.
Delia Dunstan emerged from what her team referred to as “Delia’s Den” – the soundproof room within a room that spread halfway along one window wall. She waved a hand in Steve’s direction.
‘You’d better come in.’
She turned and led the way back into her office. Steve raised his eyebrows and smirked at a couple of colleagues as he passed and followed her in. Delia closed the door behind him and indicated a chair beside her desk. She remained standing by the window, looking down to the street below.
‘Good work,’ she said. ‘It seems we could get a result.’
Her voice came to him from somewhere over his left shoulder. He found it unnerving and wished she would sit facing him across her desk. Steve shifted slightly in his seat and turned his head towards her. Delia continued speaking as if to the window, her voice brisk and clipped.
‘The target seems unaware that we’re listening. Anya’s reports suggest they intend making a move soon. They’ll be armed and using explosives. We have to stop them using them.’
Steve shrugged. He spoke to the back of her head.
‘If that’s all you want, boss, we can call up the heavy crew and bash our way in right where they are. Bingo! Job done.’
Delia turned away from the window, arms folded over a dark mauve shirt, a single thick gold chain holding a turquoise pendant looped loosely at her neck.
‘No Steve, that’s not all I want. And you bloody well know it.’
Steve took stock as she spoke – a neat, taut package, fair-haired, trim and athletic, sinuous and sensuous but not totally to his liking. He preferred his women taller, more his own height, and meatier. Anya was much more to his liking; their grapple in the dark outside the Sri Lankans’ flat had been quite a turn-on. Besides, the office scuttlebutt was that Delia had something going with a former Pommy operative who kept getting involved in the local crime scene like some latter-day Hercule Poirot. And anyway, who in their right mind would want to get entangled with their boss, even for a quick bonk? He held the thought briefly and dismissed it with a slight grin.
‘Something amusing, Steve?’
‘No boss. Just happy to be of service.’
Delia fixed her eyes on his for an unnerving few moments. He held her gaze and felt himself reddening and hoped it wasn’t showing. She picked up a thin manila folder and opened it out on the desk in front of her.
‘What I want is this whole evil trade stamped on and obliterated once and for all. It’s breeding misery and death wherever it goes. Just because we have to leave it to others to root it out at its source doesn’t mean we can’t contribute. Our part is to lop off the local arm before it can spread any further.’
Steve gave a nonchalant shrug.
‘It seems the Sri Lankans have the same idea. So why don’t we leave them to it?’
‘Simply because their ways are not our ways. They are a bunch of mercenaries who shoot first and ask questions later. There’s no way they can be allowed to run wild and take the law into their own hands, no matter how just their cause might seem. There’s little doubt they were behind that massacre at the airport but so far our friends in the local police haven’t got enough evidence to make it stick.’
‘And that’s where we come in?’ offered Steve.
‘There and everywhere else,’ said Delia. ‘We ride their coat-tails into the main game and with any luck clean up all round without another person being killed or having mak
eshift bombs blasting the suburbs. We need to know their target and who’s behind it. So far they’ve revealed little of that, except we know it’s more than likely somewhere in Richmond.
‘Perhaps we need some local knowledge,’ said Steve.
Delia’s head shot up sharply. She fixed him with an unsmiling stare.
‘Meaning?’
He kept his cool and returned her stare. Both knew he had struck a nerve.
‘Nothing boss. I thought there might be someone with their ear to the ground who could help. A passing idea.’
‘Then let it pass.’
He gave a slight smile. They both stopped the staring game. Delia tapped a hand sharply on the manila folder and pushed it towards Steve.
‘These are the transcripts of what Anya’s sent so far,’ she said. ‘There are also a few rough ideas I’ve had on how we should proceed from here on in.’ She indicated the computer to one side of her desk. ‘Everything else you need is in the system. I expect a full report.’
‘How soon?’
‘Yesterday of course.’
She stood up and walked slowly over to the window, taking in the busy scene below.
‘So many people going about their business with not a care in the world,’ she mused, her voice a low monotone. ‘So very few realise the evil that surrounds them. They could take the tram home tonight and find their whole street wiped out by some mercenary’s belief in a greater cause.’
Steve shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, unsure of whether a response was needed. Such introspection was unsettling. You were trained to do a job and did it to the best of your ability, no questions asked. You knew from the beginning you were one of the good guys. He saw no need to debate the reasons and motives. Once you started to do that, you might as well quit. Maybe that was the problem with Delia’s reputed squeeze, the Pommy has-been. Questioned his motives; lost his bottle. Steve glanced over to the window. Delia was still gazing out over the city. He picked up the folder from her desk and rose from his chair.