He flashed a knife at me. “Ranger, you must.”
“You can’t kill me in public.”
“Don’t wish to kill you. Need your help.”
I couldn’t help but step closer at that. “What do you mean?”
“Here, please.” He vanished back into the narrow gap that was only as wide as my shoulders.
Maybe my judgment was clouded by the rum, but I followed him to the edge and peered in. The poor excuse for an alley stank of cat piss, and I couldn’t see in any farther than a few feet. Face-chain guy was pressed against the wall, his face hidden in shadow.
“The Korax have taken Kadee Matari.”
“What? When?”
“Today during siesta. She said if that were to happen, you must get her back.”
“M-me?” I spluttered in astonishment. “Even if I knew where she was, why would I do that?”
“Because they also have the American Marshal.”
I took a step into the alley so that I was up close to his face. “Not possible. He’s right here.”
Face-chain guy slid slowly down the wall, reached into the dark and then stood up again. He had a Stetson in his hand.
I took it and turned to the light. It was Sixkiller’s.
“They took him from the pavement when you left him. Perhaps they planned to take you as well but luck was on your side.”
“How do you know? What were you doing here?”
“Following you, waiting for a chance to speak. You’re our best hope.”
“Why? I know as much about these people as you do. Maybe less. I have no idea where to find them, where to start.”
“Until you came to visit, we had no trouble. Now the Korax seek to claim our place.”
“They’ve made a move on you? I thought you were working with them.”
His chains tinkled as his face worked in agitation. “She works alone. We work alone.”
The man handed me a phone, then pushed past me, causing me to flatten against the wall. “There is one number in here. Call me when you have found her.”
When I stepped back onto the street, he had gone but Heart was standing at the door of The Outfit looking panicked.
He saw me and ran over. “What are you doing down there? With everything that’s…”
“Give me your phone,” I interrupted him.
“What? Why?”
“I don’t have one. At least, not one I can use. Please. Quickly.”
He handed it over and watched me as I thumbed in Totes’ number.
“Who is this?” asked the Park tech.
“Virgin. Do you have any kind of locator on the Marshal?”
Silence for a moment. “Why?”
“Just answer the question.”
“I told you. He found the bug in his apartment and he doesn’t have a phone. I’m not secret service, Virgin. I don’t plant things on people.”
“So you don’t know where he is right now?”
“Nope. Is something up?”
“Call Bull and tell him I’m coming into the office. I need to see him right away.”
“Virgin?”
“Please, Totes. Just do it.”
“OK. But where are you calling fr–”
I hung up and gave Heart back his phone. “Sorry. I have to go.”
“Wow!” He grabbed my arm. “You can’t just bail without an explanation.”
I took his hand off my sleeve and squeezed it. “The Marshal’s been taken.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
“T-taken? Like abducted?” said Heart.
“Yeah, just like they tried to do with me the other night.”
“But how do you know? Who told you?” He glanced up and down the street.
“I have to go. I’m sorry. I’d say I’ll see you later tonight, but that might not pan out. You understand?”
He raised both hands in a helpless gesture. “Sure, Virgin, but let me at least escort you to work.”
I didn’t want to be escorted, but it seemed churlish to reject his courtesy. “Sure.”
We grabbed a priority taxi from a red-coded rank across the road. The PTs ran on a different grid system to the rest of the traffic, but you paid for it accordingly. I figured Parks Southern wouldn’t baulk at the cost it in this instance.
Heart asked me a few questions about who, and where, and what I would do, but I wasn’t good for questions I had no answers to.
And I was having a hard time believing the Marshal’d been taken. Sixkiller seemed so untouchable, I half expected him to be waiting in Bull’s office for me, looking smug or a trifle disdainful.
“Call me?” said Heart as we parted in the foyer of Parks Southern.
“When I get a new phone.”
He dropped a kiss on my cheek. “You make my heart ache, Virgin. Be careful.”
I frowned, not sure what he meant. “Always.”
“Let me know if I can help,” he added.
“Unlikely. But if you hear anything… you know… rumours.”
“I’ll head back to work now and ask the girls. They hear all sorts of things. The Marshal must have been taken close to the club. Someone might have seen something.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
I left him there and ran past security to the lift. It took an age for it to ping open at Bull’s floor.
“Where is he?” I asked Jethro, his assistant, as I burst in the door.
“He won’t be a moment, Virgin; he’s on a VIP call.”
“Fuck that!” I marched past him and went straight on in.
“Virgin?” Bull quickly tapped his desk, and the screen he was staring at went to black.
I caught a glimpse of a woman’s face but it was no one I knew.
“Can’t you ever do as you’re asked?” he barked.
“The Marshal’s gone. We don’t really have time for you to be politicking.”
“I know. I was in a conference about it. One you rudely interrupted.”
“How do you know?”
“He has a locator on him, which sent a distress signal, then stopped. Tell me what you know and what you think.”
I sat on the other side of the desk and went through it, explaining the visit from Kadee Matari’s man. I finished with “Maybe we should contact Detective Chance.”
“I think this beyond Aus-Police, Virgin. Now I have your full report, I’ll be bringing in some outside help. You need to just sit tight and wait until they arrive.”
“When will that be?”
“Tomorrow, maybe.”
“Tomorrow, maybe? Jeez, Bull, he could be dead by then.”
“If you want to look at it that way, he could be dead by now. But you don’t steal people off the street to kill them. They’re making a point or will make a demand. The Marshal is smart. He’ll know how to survive in this situation.”
“What situation, Bull? It’s not you out there. What if they’re torturing him? He’s killed one of them already.”
“Look, I appreciate your emotional investment in this, but we need experts figuring it. Be available for a briefing tomorrow when they arrive. In the meantime, stay at home and keep this to yourself.”
I glared at him, speechless. Emotional investment? What happened to plain human decency and loyalty?
I got up and headed for the door.
“And, Virgin, Totes will drop a new phone off to you at home. Stay in touch.”
“Yes, boss.” No, boss.
He stood up and crossed his arms to press the fact that he meant what he said. “Security will take you back to Cloisters.”
No point in going head to head with him on that. I had my own plan, which meant getting back to my apartment as soon as possible anyway.
“Tomorrow, then,” I said.
I left him and was told by Jethro that security would meet me in the lobby. His tone and manner were offhand and I didn’t blame him for it. Most assistants took the task of protecting their boss very seriously. They didn’t like being brush
ed off.
But even though I didn’t blame him, I also didn’t care.
Security brought a sleek company limo around to the front door and drove me home in the PT lane. I was sitting on my couch with a beer and strip of beef jerky exactly twenty-three minutes later.
I didn’t ask, but I expected at least one of them stayed on outside my door or down at the front entrance. It would be an annoyance later when I wanted to leave, but Caro would play her part.
A knock meant I had to drag my butt off the couch to look through the sec-cam. It was Totes, waving a phone under the camera.
I let him in and went back to my posse on the couch.
He stood near the door, doing the awkward foot-to-foot shuffle. He looked kinda oily, like he hadn’t washed in a while.
“What’s going on with the Marshal?” he asked.
“Ask Bull. I’m on a gag order.”
His eyes widened. “Things aren’t right, Virgin. I’ve been checking the coding on the Park-scan systems. I keep finding anomalies.”
“What kind?”
“Just small things. The system is meant to self-repair and alert me when it does. But it’s like it’s running a second layer of code that I can’t see, and that’s causing bubbles.”
“Have you told Bull?”
“Not until I know what it is. Don’t mention it, please.”
“That might explain why we couldn’t see those guys waiting to ambush me. How long till you figure it out?” I said.
“I haven’t slept in a couple of days.”
I held out my hand for the phone. “Do you have my new number?”
He gave me a coy look.
“Right. Thanks for dropping it in.”
He waved at the Virgin doll on the sideboard and let himself out.
I got busy transferring my contacts list from my tablet to my new phone, then sent Caro an urgent text.
She arrived with pizza as I was getting through my third beer.
“I’ll take that,” she said, snaffling my longneck.
I relieved her of the pizza carton and sat down again. “How did you know I was hungry?”
“You message me close to midnight. Of course you’re hungry.”
Pepperoni, olive and pineapple with stringy cheese hanging from the crust. I folded the cheese around my finger and popped it in my mouth. Heaven.
“So, wassup?” she said, slouched in my armchair, sipping the beer. Despite the dark rings, her eyes were bright. Sharp.
“Your friend Hamish. I might need to contact him.”
“Oh?” She sat up straight.
“Nate’s been taken off the street down near the Outfit in the Quarter.”
“How do you know?”
I told her what had happened and about my visit from Kadee’s right-hand guy. “I’ve been to Bull. He doesn’t want to involve the police. Says he’s got some specialists coming tomorrow. The Marshal’s a pain in my arse, Caro, but he doesn’t deserve to have to wait till Bull has all his T’s crossed for someone to start looking for him.”
“What do you need from me?”
“Matari’s guy says the Crow and Circle have taken them, and I think Dad’s essays might have clues about who or where they are. I need you to help me read them now, tonight.”
“Essays?”
“Yeah, he kept journals, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at them until yesterday. See, Nate told me Dad had something to do with this. That’s why he is out here. They think that maybe I’m connected by default.”
“Was your dad an activist?”
“Certainly about the environment. But he had strong opinions on everything, you know. A few of his essays were published online. Could be that he got himself targeted because of it. But it’s going to take a while to check through them. I need another set of eyes.”
“Let’s get started, then.” You didn’t have to join the dots with Caro. She was usually on the page ahead.
I got the journal from its hidey-hole in the air con and file-shared the essays to her tablet. We sat then, reading and eating and drinking until I could see fingers of daylight stretching across the floor through the bedroom window.
I’d dozed a couple of times and woke myself up falling sideways. Caro, though, never raised her head from the screen.
“This could be something,” she said, rousing me from my current trance. “Make some coffee.”
I got up and boiled the jug, dropping some bread in the toaster as well. When I carried it over and set it on the coffee table, she looked up and blinked.
“How can you concentrate like that? All night?” I asked.
“Practice,” she said, munching. “You know I don’t sleep much.”
That was true. Her insomnia was one of the reasons we’d met at the psychiatrist’s.
“What have you got?”
“Your dad missed his calling in life. Some of this is damn fine work.”
I nodded. “Like I said… always an opinion.”
“Not just opinion. Ideas that should be heard. This essay is about a common world mythology. Your dad sees it as an untapped power. He claims that working toward a common mythology is the only way to contain terrorism, anarchical acts and crime.”
“Think I’ve heard him talk about that before. But a common world mythology, come on, Caro. Like that’s ever going to happen. People kill each other over shoes.”
She looked thoughtful. “He’s not suggesting it’s an overnight revolution. It’s something that you do slowly, methodically.”
“Do what, though?”
“Change belief systems. Like Stockholm Syndrome, except on a worldwide stage.”
I shook my head. “Great theory, but I can’t see any practical way of achieving it.”
She shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. But I’ve been thinking about the crow-and-circle tattoo a lot. In the Indigenous culture, the crow is a culture hero.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s a legendary creature thought to have stolen fire for them. Having the crow inside a circle could be a symbol of containing or controlling the iconic crow, controlling the mythology. That’s why your dad’s essay resonated with me. It made sense.”
I massaged my temples, trying to get my brain to process where she was going with this. “You think these people are here to take over our Indigenous culture.”
“Well, as I said, it’s a symbol. Essentially, yes, but it might extend to all Australian culture. As your dad says, control the mythology and you control the people. When you think about it, the media have been working that angle for years using communication saturation and manipulation. But what your dad’s talking about is even more insidious.”
It seemed a far-fetched concept, but I had too much respect for Caro to dismiss it out of hand. “How do you think this will help with locating Nate?”
“What did Kadee Matari say the talisman meant?”
“She didn’t really say a lot other than it was a warning that different fringe factions had lent their mark to.”
She tapped her tablet so that a note page opened. “Which factions?”
“Rastafarians, Indigenes, Coastal Romani, Vodun, Druze, Yoruba and Akan,” I said, listing them off on my fingers.
“The guy you took it from… did you recognize him, his style, the clothes he wore…?”
I thought about it. “If I had to pick one of those groups, I’d say Romani.”
“What about the guy you spoke with in Mystere?”
“Papa Brisé? He wasn’t involved in signing the talisman.”
“Interesting,” she said. “Clearly, he’s not seen as significant.”
“He’s a direct competitor for business and territory. They wouldn’t spit on each other, he and Kadee Matari. So what are you suggesting?”
“Let’s suppose that the factions whose signatures are on the talisman are all at risk from the Crow and Circle.”
“Bull says they’re called the Korax.”
�
�Bull?”
“Long story.”
She nodded, reining in her curiosity. “As I was saying… The Korax… It stands to reason that the Korax will be watching them. If we watch them too–”
“Stake out the stake-out?”
“Bad cop analogy, but yeah.”
“It will take time.”
“You got any better ideas?”
“Bull might.”
“Or he might not.”
I ate the last of my bread crust and put the plate down. “Let’s get started, then.”
“What do you know about the fringe groups marked on the talisman?”
“Less than you, I expect, but I do know someone with ties to the Coastal Romani.”
“I wrote an article on the changing face of Rasta, so I’ve still got some contacts there,” she said.
“That’s only two.”
“Hamish will help.”
“Not until you tell me who he is, Caro. I mean, he ran over that guy like he was roadkill. Didn’t even blink.”
“Fine. I met him in East Africa– Burundi. He helped me out of a tight spot and I’m repaying the favour. He needed somewhere to lay low for a while.”
“He’s a mercenary?”
“Hamish believes in PE,” she said. “Private Enterprise.”
“Well, that’s splitting hairs.”
“As you do when you must. Hamish will watch Africans. It’s a bit of a specialty of his.”
“You mean he’s already doing that anyway?”
“Let’s just say he won’t have to crane his neck.” She tucked her tablet into her bag and stood to stretch.
“I’ll text you if I find out anything,” I said.
“Right.” She headed for the door.
“And, Caro…”
She waved without turning back. “I know… thanks.”
“Actually, I need you to help me get past my bodyguards.”
“The one in the corridor. That’s easy. Wait ten minutes and go down the stairs.”
The thought of going down the stairs in my current state of exhaustion was akin to being asked to climb up a mountain. “Thanks.”
“See? I knew you had some gratitude tucked away in there.” She laughed and shut the door behind her.
A soon as she left, I jumped in the shower to revive myself. Then into a grey shirt and jeans. Boots. Hair pulled back. The mirror reflected eyes that would have done a three-day-binge hangover proud, and some unattractively blotchy skin.
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