No Free Man

by Graham Potts

  “Simone was close to your friend.”

  “He was her brother.”

  Anna’s eyes fell. “Did she forgive you?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since.”

  “Why not?”

  Murphy ran his hand down his face and sat down next to Anna. “You’re a little like her, you know.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “In what way?”

  “She was always worried that people would judge her for what she was, that they’d never care to know all of her.” He wrapped his fingers around his dog tags.

  “What was she?”

  He hesitated. “A woman. Pretty. A little crazy.”

  “Did you judge her for those things?”

  “There was so much more to her than that.”

  Anna shook her head. “But what she was…” She paused. “I mean, those things still mattered, right?”

  “Not always.”

  “Did she find it hard to reach out to people?” She shifted on the bed. “Like maybe the risk of getting hurt was too high?”

  He opened his hand and stared at the dog tags. “I can’t believe you opened the box,” he said.

  Anna tossed the pillow away. “You knew I would.”

  “No, I thought Grigoriy probably would,” Murphy said. “I hoped that you wouldn’t.”

  “I had to know.”

  “Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but there was this girl called Pandora.”

  Anna reached for his hand. “What’s going on, Stepan? Tell me, please.”

  “I’m not sure, yet.”

  “Is that why you asked me to fetch the box?”

  He shook his head. “At the time, no.”

  “And now?”

  “And now I can’t think straight.”

  She nodded slowly and let go of his hand.

  He stood up, picking up his pistol from the bedside table and checking it was loaded and safe before holstering it under his jacket.

  “Do you know what my favourite line of Chekhov is?” she asked.

  Murphy looked at her. “No, I don’t.”

  “It was an entry in his notes. He wrote that being in love shows a man how he ought to be.”

  Murphy’s shoulders sagged. He pushed his dog tags into her hand and folded her fingers around them. “Take this,” he said. “One of the last pieces.”

  Anna nodded gratefully and accepted the gift. Murphy kicked the empty box under the bed. He picked up his duffel bag, heaving it over his shoulder, and walked to the door.

  “You’re going to live through this, Anna,” he said, turning around. “I promise.” He left, closing the door behind him.

  Anna stared at the door and shivered. She draped the dog tags around her neck and they fell against her chest. They felt cold.

  “I trust you, Stephen Murphy,” she whispered.

  CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA

  WEDNESDAY 14 SEPTEMBER

  10:15 AM AEST

  “This is getting frustrating.” Hartigan retrieved her mobile phone from the lock box. She turned to see Elliot cast a withering glare at their escort. He stopped abruptly on the ball of his foot, his arms swimming backwards through the air as he fought to keep his balance. The commando retreated to his chair, wringing his beret in his hands.

  “What is?” Elliot asked, hefting her satchel.

  Hartigan exchanged a glance with the soldier but he looked away quickly. She shook her head. “What was I saying?”

  “You were frustrated about something,” Elliot said, heading towards the elevator.

  “Oh, right.” She followed Elliot. “I feel like I’m being made to sit at the kid’s table.”

  “Maybe some fresh air will make you feel better,” Elliot said, taking a cigarette out of her satchel.

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “Well, congratulations.” Elliot placed her cigarette behind her ear and put her hands into her pockets.

  “Do you think it’s because I’m a woman?” Hartigan asked, pushing the button to call the elevator.

  “Lots of women smoke.”

  Hartigan sighed. “Do you think—”

  “Do you really need to be told that you’re good at your job to be good at your job?”

  “I guess not,” Hartigan mumbled. “It just gives me a little bit of motivation. Purpose.”

  “Do you remember what you said about Volkov, the part that scared you the most?”

  Hartigan nodded, stepping into the elevator. “I said that he could be in the room and you wouldn’t know until it was too late.”

  “There’s your motivation, right there, and you came up with it all by yourself.”

  “You’re not much of a team player, are you?”

  “I guess not,” Elliot said. She pulled her hand from her pocket to push the button for the ground floor.

  Hartigan heard something clatter on the tiles and looked down at her feet. It was a necklace. “What’s this?” she asked, picking up the silver charm.

  “It’s a medallion,” Elliot said, snatching it from Hartigan. She shoved it back into her pocket and looked at Hartigan apologetically. “It was a gift.”

  “From a man?” Hartigan asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “It’s a caduceus,” Hartigan said, adjusting her jacket. “It’s from Greek mythology.”

  Elliot didn’t respond.

  “You want me to stop talking, right?” Hartigan asked.

  Elliot pressed her lips together and nodded.

  “I’ll stop talking.” Hartigan heaved a sigh.

  Elliot closed her eyes.

  “You don’t have many friends, do you?” Hartigan asked.

  The doors opened and Elliot slipped through the crowd of people waiting to get in the elevator.

  Hartigan trotted after her. “Have you ever had any friends at all?”

  Elliot stopped and turned. “Why are you trying to paint me as some social mutant?”

  “I was just curious.” Hartigan hesitated. “About Angela James.”

  Elliot’s eyes fell and she turned away.

  Hartigan watched her leave the building and took a deep breath, briefly balling her hands into fists before walking towards the exit. She found Elliot outside, propped against a bollard and smoking a cigarette. The young analyst swallowed and stared at her shoes. “Lee wanted me to raise the topic discreetly.”

  “Do you want to try it again?”

  “It’s a little late for that.”

  Elliot tapped the ash from her cigarette. “You bugged my room.”

  “I didn’t,” Hartigan said defensively, her palm on her chest. “Lee arranged it. I didn’t even know you talk in your sleep.”

  Elliot massaged the back of her neck with an open hand.

  “Lee just received a report from the surveillance team,” Hartigan explained. “Enclosed was a transcript of all that you said last night.”

  “It must be a short transcript.”

  “You kept telling a girl called Angela to wake up.”

  “You know who she is. I heard your father was the lead detective on her murder case.”

  “I want to hear what you have to say.”

  Elliot closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “She was a close friend.” She puffed on her cigarette.

  “I need more than that,” Hartigan said, leaning against another bollard.

  Elliot flicked her cigarette away and retrieved another one from her satchel. “I had known her since I was four years old,” she said, lighting the cigarette. “We were at the same orphanage.”

  “Oh.” Hartigan looked away.

  “Everyone adored her,” Elliot said. “I was the bad influence. I’d convince her to help me steal ice-cream from the kitchen or to sneak away and hide during mass. We always got caught and I’d get the strap. She used to get away with a warning. Not even the nuns could resist her smile.”

  “You grew up together?”

  “She was adopted when we we
re twelve. It was a good family, a wealthy family with lots of influence. I think her new dad owned a newspaper.”

  “She was lucky.”

  “She went to all the best schools and was spoiled rotten,” Elliot said. “I was in and out of the orphanage but we wrote letters and she visited me.” Two soldiers in camouflage fatigues walked past and smiled at Elliot. Hartigan saw her frown.

  “Do you know what happened?” Hartigan asked.

  “She was murdered,” Elliot said, puffing on her cigarette. “Her body was never found. Did your dad tell you about this case?”

  “A little,” Hartigan said. “Angela’s dad started a big campaign in the papers. There was a suspect,” she said. “They think she was murdered by a small-time drug dealer but he was killed in a pub brawl before the police could get answers.” Her eyes glazed over. “Wrong place, wrong time, you know?”

  “Are we still talking about Angela?” Elliot asked.

  “That was my dad’s last case.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “A man escaped while being held for questioning.” Hartigan wrung her hands. “He killed a lot of cops and beat up my dad on the way out the door. He broke his nose, fractured his cheek, damaged three ribs and,” she took a deep breath, “broke his back.”

  Elliot flicked the ash from her cigarette.

  “He was forced into early retirement,” Hartigan said.

  “Does he talk about it much?”

  Hartigan shook her head. “I’ve always wanted to meet the guy, though, maybe in a dark alley with a loaded pistol.”

  Elliot dragged deeply on her cigarette and it flared brightly. “No free man, huh. I don’t remember the Magna Carta mentioning dark alleys.”

  Hartigan glared at Elliot, her jaw clenched, but Elliot’s eyes were empty. She took one last drag and stamped out her cigarette, exhaling a lungful of smoke through her nostrils. She reminded Hartigan of a dragon, a snort of sulphurous breath.

  “You’re a hypocrite, Emily,” Elliot said.

  “I didn’t say he didn’t deserve due process,” Hartigan protested. “I was just saying…”

  Elliot neared Hartigan. “You feel it, don’t you?” she whispered. “It burns inside you but it feels good.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Hartigan said weakly.

  “Suit yourself.”

  Hartigan saw a coffee shop across the square. Picnic umbrellas jutted from the tables and suited men were walking through the glass doors, balancing towers of cups. “What would you do if you were me and you met the man that hurt your father?” she asked.

  “I’m not you,” Elliot said. She salvaged some change from her pocket and counted it in the palm of her hand. “And I never had a father.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’d kill him,” Elliot said. “And if I were him, I’d kill you.” She nodded towards the coffee shop. “I want a hot chocolate. Do you have more questions or can I go?”

  Hartigan shook her head and watched Elliot stroll casually towards the tight cluster of picnic umbrellas. A caduceus, she thought.

  The caduceus is the staff of Hermes: the messenger god, the trickster, the gambler, the merchant, the killer, and the thief.

  “Why didn’t you call for help when he cuffed you to the bar?” Hartigan whispered.

  CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA WEDNESDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 12:52 PM AEST

  Lee Singh watched the deputy director shuffle his briefing papers into a neat pile on the lectern. The room was nearly empty, the last huddle of analysts murmuring to each other as they neared the exit.

  Singh stood up and buttoned his jacket before approaching the lectern. “You’re a smooth talker,” he observed.

  “They want to start selling oil to China.” The deputy director handed his briefing papers to an aide, who obediently secured them in a briefcase. “They don’t want to hear about problems.”

  Singh saw a junior agent bound through the door clutching a manila folder. “That doesn’t make the problems go away,” Singh said.

  “No, but that’s your job, not mine.” The deputy director accepted the manila folder from the junior agent before dismissing him with a wave. The young man left as quickly as he came. “I can’t recant on an assessment without good reason, Lee.”

  “Can’t or won’t,” Singh said. “I mean, what will they say about you?”

  “That’s enough,” the deputy director warned, opening the folder on the lectern. “I care about the country’s security more than my career.” He frowned. “Yesterday, you said this was all probably nothing, anyway.”

  “No, that’s what you said.” Singh thrust his hands into his pockets. “I just need to know that I have your support.”

  The deputy director adjusted his glasses and squinted at the file. “Just do your job, Lee,” he said wearily. “You only have forty-seven hours left.”

  “I know, I know,” Singh muttered. “What’s in the file, anyway?”

  He grunted and tapped his finger on the open folder. “Jakarta has graciously turned down our offer of personnel to help investigate the murder of Dr Marco Belo.”

  “They don’t want our help?”

  “This is a bad sign.”

  “They think we set up Volkov’s hit,” Singh said, jingling the keys in his pocket. “It’s too bad. I wanted to see a proper scene.”

  “They attached the case file if you want to read it.” The deputy director held out the folder. “My Indonesian is rusty.”

  Singh took the file and opened it. He paused and let out a low whistle. “Says here that Volkov was sharing a cigarette with a security guard behind a hotel. He killed the security guard, took his swipe card, and dumped the man’s body in a skip bin. The security guard inside the hotel knew his friend was on a smoke break, so didn’t look up when Volkov swiped in. Both men were strangled.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Volkov disabled the security system and went upstairs, avoiding the guard on roving patrol. He swiped into an empty room and used the balconies to reach his target’s suite. The bodyguard on the door didn’t even hear the shot.”

  “How did he escape?” the deputy director asked, adjusting his tie.

  “He set a smoke bomb on a timer,” Singh said. “The fire alarm tripped and he probably evacuated with the other guests.”

  “Volkov would’ve stood out in a crowd of Indonesians,” the deputy director observed.

  “The hotel caters to European and Australian tourists.”

  “Oh.”

  “You were right about the private charter, too. It was hired out of Jakarta at short notice, and all the paperwork was in order. His cover was good. Customs barely looked at him.” He shut the folder. “Pretty thorough, don’t you think?”

  “Thorough?”

  Singh handed the folder to the deputy director’s aide, who added it to the other documents in the briefcase. “This hit took planning, research, and surveillance. He didn’t arrange this on the flight out of Australia.” Singh shook his head. “But he couldn’t set up the job on Andrei Sorokin on the flight in, either.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “The private charter was expensive and conspicuous, but it got him here quickly.” Singh grew thoughtful. “Someone was keeping tabs on Sorokin and called Volkov out of Jakarta for the hit.”

  “Impossible,” the deputy director said. “They’d have to predict where Sorokin was going to be before calling Volkov in. It’s a long flight from Jakarta, plenty of time for Sorokin to relocate.”

  “Sorokin was an amateur,” Singh said. “It would be pretty easy to drive him in a certain direction and flush him out when the time came.”

  The deputy director nodded slowly. “Does this mean Sorokin was more important than we thought?”

  “I’m not sure,” Singh confessed.

  “Look into it.” He pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “I’ll call the embassy in Jakarta and tell them we’re not coming.”

 
Singh held up his hand. “Tell them to make arrangements for our arrival as planned.”

  “Why?”

  “It’ll put Waters on the grid.”

  “What do you mean?” the deputy director asked, checking his watch.

  “Think about all the paperwork,” Singh said. “We’re talking rushed visas and plane tickets, and then there are visit protocols to implement through our embassy in Jakarta, and lots of phone chatter. Once we load up the system with all of that, there’ll be a leak and Volkov will find out where Waters is.”

  “But that will only lure him to Indonesia.”

  “Not when we cancel the trip.”

  The elevator doors opened and Simone Elliot stepped into the corridor, pulling her red coat tighter around her waist. New check-ins had gathered in the lobby, brandishing brochures and backpacks and gawking at their phones while waiting for their turn at the front desk. Cars were queued up in the driveway and suited men wearing caps were carrying luggage through the glass entrance.

  Elliot sidestepped stacked suitcases and an elderly couple perusing the restaurant’s menu. She neared the exit and nearly collided with a man wearing a salmon-pink polo shirt and leather jacket, a black golf pencil tucked behind his ear. He mumbled an apology and joined his friend in the queue, a man wearing a green polo shirt and dark blazer.

  She grunted her forgiveness and finally made it outside. She sighed at the sky. Sullen clouds had swooped over the city, dousing the light of the late-afternoon sun, and a swirling wind whipped her hair around her face. Still, she thought, there was space out here, room to breathe, room to think.

  Her shoes squished through the watered lawn until she reached the pavement and turned towards town, searching for the Thai restaurant Hartigan had recommended.

  Hartigan, she thought. Elliot had sat outside Hartigan’s cubicle for most of the day. The young analyst had spent hours on hold with a Russian intelligence agency only to be told that they don’t give out information about their own citizens to foreign interests. Customs, shipping, on-line hotel bookings, car hire, all contacted and none of them able to provide a unique insight on Stepan Volkov’s movements.

  And they still don’t know who he really is.

  Cars swished past her, racing to the next set of traffic lights, and she stepped carefully along the bulging pavement, the concrete cracked by tree roots snaking beneath her feet.