Without warning

by John Birmingham

  The two women ate in silence, enjoying the luxury of being warm, dry and well fed in a world that had turned inexplicably hostile, just a few inches away, on the other side of a windowpane.

  The recipe wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough to her dad’s to be both comforting and upsetting to Caitlin. She had accepted the fact of her family’s death. They were gone and the shock of it was doubly unsettling because she had never expected to outlive them. The familiar scent and taste of the dish brought home a flood of memories and threatened an even greater flood of tears. She would allow herself to grieve later. She knew that such feelings couldn’t be bottled up without doing damage. But likewise, she was not ready to let her guard down in front of Monique, no matter how much closer they had become under the stresses of the last week. In the end, she told herself, the French girl was just a contact on a job that had gone wrong.

  ‘We can’t stay here, you know, Monique. We will have to get going, and soon.’

  ‘But where? And how? Travel is so difficult for everyone right now. And for you it is worse. Where would you even go?’

  Caitlin nodded. Three men ran through the intersection below, all of them young and white. Two had shaved heads while the third wore his lank, dark hair in a ponytail. They seemed to be laughing, but running as fast as they could. Whether towards or away from something, she could not tell. She waited for some further development but the cobbled street, wet with acidic rain and glowing a sick, jaundiced yellow under the street lamps, remained deserted.

  ‘Things are better in England,’ said Caitlin. The government seems to have a stronger grip.’

  ‘Social fascists,’ replied Monique with a shrug. ‘And racist too. Putting the army on the streets like that. And only in the Muslim districts, of course.’

  Caitlin didn’t rise to the bait. There was no passion in the delivery. It was almost as though her companion was reciting a lesson by rote. A few days ago Caitlin would have argued with her, pointed out that the army had gone where the violence was worst. But she stayed silent and Monique abandoned her polemic, switching to a practical protest.

  ‘How would you get there, to England?’ she asked. ‘The border is closed.’

  ‘I’m not a tourist, baby.’

  ‘No. I suppose not. But you are still hunted, non?’

  ‘We are still being hunted,’ Caitlin reminded her.

  ‘Do you think? Really? Don’t you think they have bigger problems? After all, you are no longer working on your mission, are you?’

  For the first time in many days, an accusing tone crept back into Monique’s voice, but unlike the first twenty-four hours after their escape from the hospital, it was unaccompanied by any whining or hectoring. If Caitlin wasn’t mistaken, Monique was almost gently mocking her.

  ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘The mission’s been scrubbed. By me, by circumstance, or whatever. My priority now is getting the hell out, and I will take you with me, if you still want to come. But if you believe you’re safe here, I’ll go alone.’

  Monique held her gaze for a long moment, lifting her chin in an almost defiant gesture. ‘What was your mission, Caitlin? Why did you lie to us? And why did those men kill Maggie and the others?’

  Caitlin shook her head as she put down the empty bowl. ‘I don’t know why they were killed, Monique. I’ve told you that. It was probably just a fuck-up. I don’t think it had anything to do with my mission, although it obviously had something to do with me, since I’m the one they were trying to grab.’

  ‘But we were your mission. Your target.’ She said the word with more venom than Caitlin was expecting.

  ‘No, you weren’t,’ the American replied, trying to sound soothing without being patronising. She paused then, on the verge of a significant departure. To go on would be to acknowledge that not just the mission, but her whole world, had been scrubbed. She stared out of the window, looking at but not really seeing the bleak scene below. She missed Wales, missed the security of knowing he was out there somewhere, watching her back, keeping her safe.

  She felt guilty at being unable to help him, but of course there was no way of knowing whether he was even in the country when the Disappearance went down. He may well have been out of Paris or out of France altogether, especially with her laid up at the hospital for so long. He may have been in Washington.

  Her training reasserted itself. Putting aside pointless speculation, she had to go with what she knew, addressing the situation right in front of her. ‘You were going to lead me to my target,’ she explained. ‘To a man, a blind recruiter, called al Banna.’

  Monique looked confused. ‘But I don’t know any blind men.’

  Caitlin shook her head. ‘Sorry – jargon. Al Banna’s not blind. You are. He had targeted your group as mules, carriers. You were going to take something back to the UK for him.’

  ‘What bullshit.’ And in an instant, the old Monique was back, her face an angry mask of disbelief. ‘I’ve never heard of this al Banna. None of the others mentioned such a name. Do you take us for fools?’

  Caitlin kept her face professionally blank at that question, but Monique seemed not to notice. A switch had flipped over somewhere and a torrent of impacted rage was released.

  ‘We are not idiots, you know, Caitlin. We are not blind or even one-eyed, like some. We saw oppression and violence on all sides, not just from you and your masters. I have worked as a volunteer in a women’s shelter; I have seen what happens under the burqa, non? The broken arms, the smashed ribs and bruises everywhere. Do not imagine that just because we opposed your stupid oil war, we did not understand the nature of your enemies. You were as bad as each other. They may even have been worse, possibly, but they lacked your means. So please, this stupid conspiracy of yours, don’t imagine that -’

  ‘Monique,’ Caitlin sighed, tired from a bone-deep weariness. The inertia and fatigue in her voice seemed to trip the other girl up.

  ‘What?’

  She shook her head. ‘Sweetheart, you’d already been recruited.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Monique demanded to know. ‘By who?’

  Caitlin squared off and gave it to her cold. ‘By your boyfriend.’

  * * * *

  19

  ACAPULCO BAY

  The Gurkhas were a real find, the first stroke of good luck they’d had in a week. The Nepalese warriors were long famed as members of one of the finest regiments in the British Army. Fearsomeness alone did not make them special, however-the world wasn’t short of violent men. The Gurkhas were special because they combined a well-deserved reputation for savagery in battle with an equally well-founded renown for disciplined professionalism.

  The British Army had recruited Gurkha infantry since the 1850s, and thousands still served in the regiment named for them. Such fame had they earned that former members were in high demand by private security concerns all over the world. Of course, this too made them little different from old boys of any of the world’s A-list military outfits, but for Julianne Balwyn the five Gurkha warriors standing before her were of singular appeal because they had, until a week ago, been employed as shipboard security by Carnival Cruise Lines, headquartered in Florida.

  Unfortunately, the Disappearance had robbed them of an employer and any way of getting home from Acapulco. Jules chewed at the stub of a pencil while she pondered exactly how much legitimate work she might have for them, but she pushed that thought to one side. For now, she needed some tough, reliable men who wouldn’t fall apart if you pointed a gun at them, and who, just as importantly, she could trust not to sell her out.

  ‘So, Mr Shah, how long did your serve in the regiment?’

  ‘Twelve years, ma’am,’ replied the short but powerful-looking man who acted as the group leader. His accent was quite polished, for a sergeant from Nepal. ‘Four years as a private soldier. Eight as a non-commissioned officer.’

  ‘A sergeant?’

  ‘For the last six, yes, ma’am.’

  Jules nodded as
she scanned the employment history of the five men. The minimum any of them had served was six years. Shah had the longest stretch, at twelve. He was the only one who’d risen above corporal, making him the natural leader, even though they no longer took Her Majesty’s coin. Jules was thankful for that last point – it made negotiating with them a simpler affair.

  She leaned back in the old wooden chair behind a scarred table on which sat a small pile of papers, the men’s resumes, and a loaded handgun within easy reach. A big shiny Mac 10, unsafed and set to full auto, for which she had traded away her former skipper’s beloved yacht, the Diamantina. The beautiful wooden cruiser had been worth the gun, a thousand rounds of ammunition, two Mexican Army M16s, one crate of 5.56 mm reloads, and a half-pallet of rice, milk biscuits and flour, all packed tightly into bags stamped A Gift from the People of America – US AID. The guns and stores were secured in a cage behind the Gurkhas. She would’ve preferred to have transferred them to the super-yacht, but had decided with Fifi and Mr Lee that hiring reliable security was their first priority.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask why you left the Cunard Line?’ she asked. The men had all been employed by the premier British cruise liner, and some had even worked on the QE2. In her admittedly biased opinion, signing on with the Florida-based party-boat operators, Carnival, was not the first step on the happy staircase to success.

  ‘Downsizing,’ said Shah. Coming from him, the western technobabble sounded almost alien. ‘The labour hire firm that subcontracted our services to Cunard was bought out by P amp;O, who were taken over by Carnival a year later. We were transferred to their Caribbean operations a fortnight ago. We were to pick up our next berth here at Acapulco.’ The former sergeant shrugged as a way of finishing his explanation.

  Jules sighed. ‘Say no more.’

  The dockside warehouse she’d hired was a long way from the resort town’s tourist centre, but she could make out the beachfront apartments and hotels through a greasy, unwashed window to her right. One of the bigger towers was ablaze, with flames leaping high over the top floor. It was a moot point whether anybody was trying to put it out. Most likely not. The lower floors were probably being looted as she sat there.

  ‘Well, Mr Shah. My father would have been impressed with your regimental connections. He was a Navy man, but he didn’t hold with all that inter-service rubbish. And he thought very highly of Cunard. It’s a pity you got shafted like that.’

  She didn’t mention that the old rogue had been banned by Cunard for cheating at cards on a cruise through the Med ten years earlier, and how only a swift return by his lordship of the swindled funds and an abject apology to his victims had kept the rozzers from becoming involved. Shah looked like the sort of chap who’d throw card cheats over the side.

  Instead she continued: ‘I’d be very keen to take on you and your men, Mr Shah, but there are two issues we need to settle. One I don’t see causing much difficulty; the other, however, we’ll have to see.’

  Julianne spoke directly and forcefully, never taking her eyes off the man she was addressing. Behind him, his companions remained as immobile as stone dogs.

  ‘Firstly, this won’t be a pleasure cruise. My ship – which, you should know straight off, we boarded and took over after the original crew disappeared behind the event horizon last week – has already been attacked once. My captain was killed, and in turn we killed every one of the pirates attempting to seize the vessel. I do not expect that will be the last trouble we see. I cannot guarantee anyone’s safety, quite the contrary, but we will endeavour to avoid whatever hazards we can.’ She gestured back over his shoulder to the view of downtown Acapulco. ‘I probably don’t need to tell you that things are going to get worse, do I?’

  ‘No,’ agreed Shah. ‘The risks are acceptable. And your second point?’

  ‘Payment,’ she said. ‘And length of contract. Without a stable currency in which to negotiate, we are stuck with bartering for your services. As a minimum I promise free passage to the port of your choosing in Asia, at which point our business together will be deemed complete. Right now, I cannot give you a schedule. We might get there in a few weeks, it could be six months. Over and above passage, you’ll require payment. I’m happy to hear any suggestions you might have about how we calculate a reasonable figure.’

  Shah nodded slowly, his eyes peering into an unknowable future. She noted he didn’t consult his men.

  ‘Gold,’ he said at last. ‘We shall settle on an amount of gold, the value to be calculated at the end of the cruise, based on an equivalent pay scale to that which we would have earned with Carnival, plus hazard pay at current regimental rates, for each day spent in combat. The pay of any man killed or totally and permanently disabled to be delivered to his family by those surviving, along with a compensation payment to the value of his entire contracted fee. As to length of service, we would insist on an end to the contract within twelve months of its commencement.’

  It was Jules’s turn to nod sagely and give the impression of hard thought. She quickly toted up what she was getting into and figured it to be worth about half of their current liquid assets. A lot, in other words. On the other hand, there would doubtless be ample opportunity for ‘salvage’ in the near future. And, if she could just get to the Caymans before everything turned completely pear-shaped, she might be able to access her own accounts, and maybe even Pete’s. Beyond that broad-brush plan to cash up and lay in stores, she wasn’t sure what they would do. Lee was no more interested in returning to his home village than she was in heading for England, where there were still warrants out for her arrest on charges relating to the money her father had sent her. As for Fifi, whatever sorry excuse for home and hearth she’d once had was now lost behind the energy wave. It was possible they might well end up going with Pete’s original plan and heading for Tasmania. It was far enough from everywhere to be safe, surely, and he’d insisted it was one of the few places in the world that would still be able to feed itself following a core meltdown of the old world order.

  After a moment’s consideration she glanced at the men behind Shah. ‘Do you mind if I talk to your men?’ she asked him.

  ‘No. Ask them what you will.’

  ‘Are you men okay with that offer? Do you need to discuss it?’

  The briefest of nonverbal conferences took place, with each man quickly exchanging glances, shrugs and nods with each other.

  ‘That will be acceptable,’ replied the man standing nearest to Mr Shah. Jules was pretty certain it was the former corporal, Birendra. His first name was as long as a Himalayan mountain path, and just as difficult to negotiate.

  ‘Good-o, then,’ said Jules. ‘Mr Shah, if you would like to work out the precise figures, we shall draw up a contract today. I’d like to get some of your men out to the yacht as soon as possible, but I will need two of you here with me over the next couple of days as we take on crew.’

  Shah grunted in affirmation and, she was sure, nearly saluted her. ‘Corporal Birendra will take Subba and Sharma out to the vessel. I will remain with Thapa and you.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Jules, still unsure who was who, other than Shah and possibly Birendra. She did note the use of the military rank, too. ‘I imagine you fellows will have personal effects you want to pick up. And I suppose there’s a bill for your accommodation to be worked out?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ replied Shah. ‘We have personal items to gather. For the last week, however, we have provided security to our hotel in return for lodging. No bill.’

  And soon after you’re gone, no hotel, Jules thought to herself. ‘Just one other thing, Mr Shah – or would you prefer “Sergeant”?’

  ‘That is your choice, Miss.’

  ‘Okay then. Your men here – I’m sorry to have to ask, and I mean no disrespect – but do they all speak good English? It’s just that it could be an issue in a tight spot, couldn’t it?’

  Shah’s face split open into a wide grin. ‘The Queen’s English, ma’am. With a touch of
sarf London, from the instructor in their barracks.’

  ‘All right,’ Jules smiled. ‘That will do fine. If you would like to detail a small party to pick up your gear from the hotel, I’ll draft up some papers for you to check and sign if acceptable. Then I’ll need your help transferring those stores behind you to my boat. We’ll run out to the yacht, you can meet the others, secure the ship, and then you and I and Mr… Thapa, was it? – we’ll get back on shore and round up some reliable crew.’