by Gary Kemble
Harry sipped his beer. A pause. He imagined SASmate sitting in a dark room somewhere, the screen the only light in the room. It was stupid, assigning looks to someone he’d never met.
‘Like what?’ SASmate typed.
The cursor blinked. ‘Oh, just the usual. Drug trafficking, rape, murder. What about you? What do you know about the crash?’
Harry flicked Skype to the background on his screen and watched the video of the Black Hawk coming in. In slow motion. It smashed against the deck, bounced, and dropped into the sea. He closed his eyes, seeing deep blue, the hull of the ship far above him. His lungs were screaming for air.
Opened his eyes. Flicked back to Skype. SASmate had replied.
‘Well, let’s just say I know for a fact it wasn’t pilot error.’
Harry shook his head. ‘I need more than that. At some point we’re going to have to trust each other. Why don’t we meet up. Where are you?’
‘Brisbane. Same as you. What I want to know is, what’s a reporter on a shitty local rag doing chasing something that no-one else will touch with a barge pole?’
Harry considered. ‘I came across some information. It led to some more information. I’m a journalist. That’s what we do. We follow the story until the trail runs cold or we score a hit.’
Despite the heat, Harry felt goosebumps rising on his arms. A few weeks earlier, this wouldn’t have applied to his journalistic endeavours. Now it did.
‘Fair enough,’ SASmate wrote. ‘So let’s line up this meeting.’
CHAPTER 30
The Thursday night crowd at the Liber Lounge was large enough that Harry and Jess could talk without worrying about people overhearing, but not so loud that they couldn’t talk at all. They sat outside on the verandah, watching rush-hour traffic crawl by on Margaret Street below, the footpaths crowded with workers heading home or on to after-work drinks. A man in an unconvincing Santa suit had set up on the corner, and was urging passers-by to give him their loose change.
Jess was in her work clothes, a pristine dusky-pink blouse and dark pants. Hair down. She told Harry she used to wear it up, but then after the first tattoo decided wearing it down was the way to go. She didn’t think the insurance company she worked for was quite ready for a tattooed team leader.
They sipped their drinks. A schooner of VB for Harry, large glass of white wine for Jess. Harry handed over his iPhone, with a photo of the latest tattoos: the Black Hawk and the avenging angel.
‘I did some research on the names. Tim Edwards died in the Black Hawk crash in 2008. Tim was with Rob when they discovered the plantation. As were Geoff Lane and John Birmingham. Geoff and John died in an IED explosion in Helmand province, that same year.’
‘What about this Middleton guy, and the Arabic script?’
‘Middleton was the pilot off Fiji. Collateral damage.’
‘And the Arabic?’
Harry shrugged. ‘I got Bill to translate: Bibi Naderi. I couldn’t find anything on her online. But my guess is she was the woman in the plantation.’
‘How would he have known her name?’
‘He must’ve tapped his contacts in Afghanistan to do some asking around for him.’
Jess sipped her drink. ‘There were eight people on that chopper, right?’
Harry nodded.
‘And presumably Geoff and John weren’t the only ones caught up in that explosion?’
‘No. Two others were injured.’
‘Shit. So. . . Rob uncovers a massacre in Afghanistan. Tries to get some answers. And then, shortly after, his whole team dies in “accidents.”’
‘Yep.’
‘Cardinal doesn’t muck about.’
Harry shifted in his seat, trying to ease the discomfort in his back.
‘Anything new on your end?’ he asked.
‘You could say that,’ Jess replied. She turned and untucked her blouse at the back. The tattoo was still raw. It stretched from the bottom of her ribcage to the top of her hip, like Harry’s avenging angel. But this was a cardplayer. Grinning, skeletal face. And it was holding the cards the wrong way around. Ten cards. An ace of hearts, five of diamonds, two of clubs, nine of spades, eight of spades, nine of hearts, five of hearts, two of spades and a four of clubs. A joker had been inserted between the two of clubs and the nine of spades.
‘What was the nightmare?’ Harry asked.
‘You know how you told me that your sparrow tattoo appeared along with the memory of the fight at the pub?’
‘The Shelter Bar, yeah.’
‘They talked about getting out of Brisbane. They got as far as a shitty motel at the Gold Coast. Rob was zonked on the bed. Half a bottle of bourbon on the bedside table. He’d dumped the painkillers but then his back had gotten so bad he turned to booze instead.
‘Kyla heard the Harleys booming into the forecourt. She tried to shake Rob awake but by the time he was with it, they were already hammering on the door.
‘Rob reached under his pillow and she thought he must’ve had a gun there. But he didn’t. It was just a scrap of paper. He shoved it into her front pocket. The door rattled on its hinges.
‘They ran into the tiny bathroom and locked the door, just as the front door splintered inwards. Rob locked it but it was one of those shitty internal doors – it wasn’t going to hold Dreadnorts back for any length of time.
‘Kyla yanked the tiny window open. Rob braced himself against the door. They were thumping on it now, yelling to be let in. He told her to go. She didn’t want to leave him. Someone massive hit the door and it cracked. She could see the sweat on Rob’s brow and the way his legs were quivering. “Go,” he hissed. “Or they win.”
‘She leant forward, kissed him, squeezed through the window and fell into the alleyway. Behind her she heard someone scream, but it wasn’t Rob. She heard more Harleys approaching but the way the sound was reverberating she couldn’t tell where they were coming from. So she ran for the streetlights and came out on one of the main roads. There were cars cruising past, towering apartment complexes everywhere she looked, and in the distance the sound of waves pounding the beach.
‘She looked back. She could see the sign: Sea Breezes Motel. But from where she stood she couldn’t see the front of the place. She ran across the road then, lost herself in Surfers Paradise.
‘She was crying, cursing. She remembered the piece of paper and pulled it out of her pocket. It was a tattoo design. She laughed, in spite of herself.
‘She went into the first tattoo parlour she found, and gave them the design.’
Jess looked down, took a big gulp of wine. Harry tried to make sense of the information.
‘So, she escaped?’ Harry said.
Jess shook her head. She wouldn’t look at him.
‘She felt like shit. She’d been let down so many times in her life that she knew intimately what it was like. Kyla clung to Rob’s final words – Go, or they win – but she couldn’t take much solace from them. She desperately wanted to go back for him, but knew there was no point.
‘She went into hysterics while they were tattooing her. Laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. God knew what was happening to Rob, or had already happened to him, and here she was getting inked. The guy doing the tatt asked her if she was all right, and she just burst out crying. She told him to finish the fucking thing.’
‘And then?’ Harry reached across the table and laid his hand on Jess’s. He felt giddy, touching her skin. She
pulled away, pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
‘I can’t. . . I can’t talk about it right now. Maybe later.’ Harry stared at the tattoo.
‘What do you think?’ he said.
Jess shrugged. ‘It’s not exactly a winning hand. Nothing to grin about.’
She took another swallow of wine. She’d drunk half of it already.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘And Darren’s moved out.’
‘What!’
‘Yeah. The night I brought Afsoon over – that was the
final straw. I should have just lied. But I couldn’t think of what to say. Lying isn’t my forte. But, alternatively, I didn’t know how to tell him the truth. So it was the worst of both possible worlds.’
Harry wanted to be sorry for this man he’d never met, but he didn’t have it in him. Instead, he imagined taking Jess home, looking after her. He imagined coffee on the front steps with her. Walking up to the water tower.
‘I’m sorry,’ Harry said. ‘I wish there was something I could do.’
Jess shrugged, sniffed. ‘I think there’s hope. Once all this mess is sorted out.’
She gestured to the air around her, as though the Liber Lounge or Brisbane in general was to blame. Her statement was one of blind optimism. Neither she nor Harry knew if they would ever sort it out, or what would happen when they did. Would the tattoos disappear? Would it stop more tattoos appearing? Or would the process continue, until they were totally consumed?
They finished their drinks. Jess bought another round. Harry watched her at the bar, felt a longing deep within himself that he hadn’t experienced for a long time. Sighed it away. He watched the people in the street below.
‘What are you thinking?’ she said as she returned, placing the drinks down.
‘Ah. Nothing. Bullshit,’ he said.
‘Hey, in case you think it’s all bad news. . .’ Jess reached up with one hand and pulled the black lanyard from around her neck, handing the memory key at the end of it to Harry. It was warm from her skin.
She smiled.
Harry raised his eyebrows. ‘No way.’
Jess nodded. ‘I think so. I’ve added a document in there, breaking it down. Four shell companies. I’m pretty sure they’re shell companies. All doing a lot of business with Swenson Constructions until late 2008, when they pretty much drop off the face of the earth.’
‘When you say “a lot of business. . . ”’
‘Millions. I did a business registry search on them and three of them are still listed,’ she said. ‘All based in Brisbane.’
‘Why keep them?’
Jess shrugged. ‘He might still be using them. Or he might have feared shutting them down in case it looked suss. Or maybe he wants to use them in the future to funnel some money out of the company. An insurance policy.’
Harry drank some beer. ‘You said you’re pretty sure?’
‘It would be easy to check. All of them have a registered address. You can visit them. Chances are, there’ll be a tiny office with a mail slot. If that.’
‘Wow. Thank you. I want to kiss you.’
Jess looked away. Smiled. ‘Let’s propose a toast instead. Death to tyrants!’
Harry raised his glass to meet hers. Clinked. Drank. Saw Cardinal, torn apart by a sniper round.
‘Oh, and I found an article about Rob and Kyla, about the incident at the Shelter Bar,’ Jess said.
‘Really? You trying to steal my job?’
‘Ha. The article described Rob as “former SAS”, said he was considered extremely dangerous and warned people not to approach him. They said Kyla was a nurse at the RBH, but was on extended leave for health reasons.’
Harry nodded.
A third round of drinks appeared and disappeared, and then a fourth. Harry and Jess moved on from tattoos and Rob and Kyla to general life. Growing up. School. Uni. Dreams, both those they’d achieved and those they hadn’t. Harry loved everything about Jess. Her laugh. The way the corners of her eyes crinkled when she smiled. The unconscious gesture of smoothing strands of hair behind her ear. And she had a great body. She was smart. And she was with him. They were bound together.
Before he knew it, they were in a cab together, heading to his place.
CHAPTER 31
Harry felt strangely awkward when he ushered Jess into his house. Despite all that they shared. Despite feeling as though he knew her in ways he had never known a woman, including Bec. He felt suddenly coy.
‘Take a seat,’ he said, clearing some clothes off the lounge to make a space for them both. ‘I’ll get some wine.’
In the kitchen he poured two glasses, drank half of one, refilled. Stared out the kitchen window, into the back garden. Thunder boomed, the wind picked up. He closed his eyes, centring himself. Shook his head. He wanted to make love to her. Fuck the wine. He wanted to walk back in there, take her head in his hands and kiss her deeply. Run his hands down her body. He wanted to kiss every tattoo. Take the pain away and. . .
Harry opened his eyes. Is that what he wanted? Or what Rob wanted? And did Rob want Jess, or Kyla? Did it even matter anymore?
He carried the drinks back to the lounge room. Jess was going through his CD collection. She held up an Eminem CD, raised her eyebrows.
‘It was a phase,’ Harry said. Smiled.
She took her glass and they sat down together. He was all too aware of her perfume, and the scent of her body. She slipped off her shoes and pulled her legs up under her. Their knees touched.
Harry sipped his wine.
‘So. . . there’s more to Kyla’s story,’ Jess said. ‘And I know I have to tell you. But I couldn’t back there.’
She gulped down some wine.
‘Okay. So, Kyla got the tattoo. But just as they were finishing up, a bunch of Dreadnorts piled into the place. She thought someone had tipped them off.
‘They grabbed her, dragged her outside. Bundled her into the back of a van. She expected Rob to be in there, but he wasn’t. And that was the worst thing for her. She thought that must mean he was dead. Turns out, it was much worse than that.
‘They. . . they brought her back to Brisbane. Through Brisbane. Up north. Well, you know where they took her, right?
‘Dumped her in that field. Cardinal was waiting. No-one else. Just Cardinal. They dumped her on the ground and drove off. Her wrists and ankles were bound with cable ties. She lay there in the dirt, trying to sit up. She could hear traffic barrelling past on the highway but it may as well have been on the surface of the moon for all the good it would do her.
‘He was on the phone. That was the thing that really blew her away. He was on the fucking phone.’
Jess shook her head, pressed her free hand against one of her eyes. Drank some more wine. Her hands were badly shaking now. Harry moved in, held her. He rested his head on the top of hers, breathing her in. She sniffed. Pushed him away gently.
‘No, Harry. You need to hear this. He was on the phone to Rob. Well, to Crow and Heathy. They had Rob strapped to a chair, in that old skate rink at Paddington.’
Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, thinking about the feeling he had, driving past it.
‘They were trying to find out where he’d hidden the dossier. They were torturing him. Cardinal was . . . He was. . . It was as though he was on the phone to a friend, or a business colleague or something. Just stone cold. Calm. He smiled, looking at Kyla on the ground like that.
‘And then he moved in.’
Jess finished the rest of her wine. She played with the empty glass. Stared into its depths.
‘Jess, you don’t have to. . .’ Harry said.
‘Yeah, I do. He put the phone on speaker, asked Crow to do the same. He. . . he had a knife. He cut Kyla’s clothes off.
‘Cardinal said, “Rob, I know you’ve got a stash of documents somewhere because I’ve heard the stories about what your slut here did to get them. So either she’s going to tell me where they are, or you are.”
‘Then Cardinal laughed. “I’m going to enjoy this,” he said.
‘Kyla screamed. In spite of what she told herself she would do, she screamed. The pain was too much. And then, from the other end of the line, Crow said Rob wanted to say something. So Cardinal stopped.
‘Rob was panting, hissing into the phone. When he spoke, his voice was thick, he could barely pronounce the words. They must’ve done a fair bit of work on him. He said, “Wait! Please, stop! Let her go. It’s. . . it’s somewhere special. Somewhere. . . ”
‘Kyla scream
ed again but not in pain, in anger. “Shut up! Rob, shut up! Don’t! Or it’s all for nothing. . . ”
‘Cardinal chuckled. “Touching,” he said. “But I’m only just getting started.”
‘There was a loud noise, like splintering wood. Crow cursed. The sounds of a scuffle. Crow yelled out something about petrol, yelled at Heathy to put the fucking gun down. Then a noise, so loud the speaker distorted. And a moment of silence. Kyla screamed. She knew what the noise was. She remembered that Ahmed had been taken out with a shotgun.
‘The line went dead. Cardinal was still smiling. “Looks like it’s down to you,” he said. “Where’s the fucking dossier?”’
Harry was numb. He felt a pulsating sensation all over his body. His vision turned red.
‘Fuck the article,’ Harry said. ‘I’m going to kill him. Kill all of those fuckers.’
Jess grabbed his arm. ‘What!’
‘Well, what do you want me to say, Jess? Afsoon said she thought it would require blood. . .’
‘She said “maybe”, Harry, “maybe.”’
‘Blood, Jess. This story I’m working on, I’m a fucking community journo. We’re talking about the next prime minister of Australia. Jesus. Rob knows how to fix this. Rob knows.’
She squeezed his arm. ‘I’m not finished, Harry. Don’t you want to know what happens next?’
‘No!’
‘He raped her, Harry. He told her she could make it stop, by telling him where the dossier was. She told him that she didn’t know. And by that point, she was too traumatised to lie. She really didn’t know. He didn’t care. He raped her, over and over again. And then he cut her. Told her he’d keep cutting until she told him what he wanted to know. She told him to fuck off. As the last drops of blood drained from her body, he raped her again.’
‘Jess. . .’
‘No! Get the fuck away from me, Harry. It didn’t end there. Because of this fucking thing. . .’ – she slapped the back of her neck – ‘she was dead but still aware of everything. He slit her throat. He fucking cut her to pieces, Harry, and then he buried her. And I remember every fucking last moment.’