Hindsight

by AA Bell

  Lockman rubbed her arm. ‘What can I do to help?’

  ‘Just keep them out of earshot, and stop me from tripping. I hate falling more than anything.’

  Looking back through the haze of twelve hours, the pain of processing slow light was comparatively bearable for short periods. At ten hours ago, less so, but it was at minus ten she caught a glimpse of Lockman behind the wheel of a Hilux that was kitted up for fishing and camping. He came past the mouths of the derelict and new bridges to Likiba Isle, and turned into the beachside car park, driving past all the many vacant spaces until he swerved into one that served him with the best view of the new bridge.

  Beside him sat Tarin Sei’s ghost; a pretty-faced brunette in a man’s checked shirt, who raised a set of binoculars to her eyes and panned the bay before passing them to him. In turn, his attention panned the bay, but settled on the bridge.

  He seemed surprised moments later when Ben drove past the bridges too. The Camaro swerved to a halt only four spaces away with Mira’s ghost in the passenger seat.

  Bodies had littered the purple sand, she remembered, but looking that way now, the slim crescent beach was clean with barely a footprint. The footpath was nearly empty too, except for a sprightly spectre of an old man with a leashed terrier.

  Mira saw herself emerge with the joey from Ben’s ghostly Camaro, looking even sicker than she’d felt at the time as she’d steadied herself with one hand against his car.

  Mirage. Lockman was right. The name did now seem appropriate, but she couldn’t allow herself to be distracted. Ben needed her, and she focused as best she could to keep her thoughts straight.

  Is he here? she read from her own lips, realising how insane that would sound if she ever had to explain it to anyone.

  Ben’s ghost pointed to Lockman’s truck. Overtook us back there, he said, then pulled in his arm as if remembering that she couldn’t see him. Must have thought we were headed over the bridge …

  Mira watched the argument that followed, feeling guilty now at how hurt Ben looked when she’d suggested that Greppia couldn’t get to them through Lockman. The pained expression on his face was almost too much for her to bear — and worse. If Greppia’s people had been watching too, they would have seen that Ben was fond of her, which made him a soft target.

  Lockman’s ghost seemed to recognise the danger too. If you prefer us to hang closer, we will, he said as he hurried over in faded jeans and a black t-shirt — just as he’d described himself. Except she had been shaking by then, taking ill.

  Lockman’s ghost noticed and made the lunge for her first, shortening the distance and catching her from falling a full second before Ben, who’d been right beside her, looking the other way. In seconds Sei was at her side too, lifting Josie’s pouch over ‘Mirage’s’ head to relieve her neck of the weight, then together, the two men propped her in the shade against a palm tree, while Sei provided a picnic blanket rolled up to support her back, and set the joey’s bundle on the ground against her leg. Many hands then made swifter work of cooling her down using ice packs that Lockman fetched from his first aid kit.

  Back off, Ben warned. I told you I can handle this!

  Unperturbed though, Lockman checked Mira’s pulse, and while Ben continued to argue, Lockman made hand signals at Sei, which sent her jogging away to his Hilux to fetch more medical assistance from over the bridge. Mira couldn’t remember much of what happened after that, so seeing it replay again was like seeing it for the first time.

  She saw Ben shove Lockman away from her, and Lockman back off with his hands raised. Against her ghostly leg, she saw Josie’s pouch wriggle, the joey’s nose already out and nibbling at grass.

  Gently, Lockman helped the furless joey out to stretch her legs, and the little wallaby seemed to thank him by rubbing her neck against his leg. She liked him! Mira felt a pang of jealousy until the joey sniffed at her ghost too, but being blind and ill, ‘Mirage’ had no way of knowing it was time to respond in a way that the joey could appreciate.

  Lockman seemed to realise this too, and stooped to scratch the joey’s back, which encouraged her to nibble at the soft dune grass. Soon after, Sei returned in the truck with Neville and the wallaby looked up, but took its cue from Lockman that all was safe. He scratched her back again, and it stayed close to him, nibbling grass and sampling the smallest leaves from the dune vines.

  Neville hurried over, his face more wrinkled than ever, frowning and clearly worried about her. Looking back at him now, Mira couldn’t help but feel sorry for all the trouble she’d ever been for him. Then she noticed the ghostly joey startle and dart off along the dune into a thicket of mangroves.

  Mira hurried after her until Lockman grabbed her arm.

  ‘Tide’s in,’ he warned. ‘It’s wet ahead.’

  ‘We have to,’ Mira complained. Already clouds of mosquitoes were humming the dusk chorus. ‘The joey … she went that way. She can’t survive the night alone!’

  ‘Hang on, I see her.’ Lockman sloshed through a narrow inlet to the other side, the ghostly version of which appeared to Mira as if it might be an island twice a day until it drowned at the peak of each tide. Tall mangrove roots bristled over the mud like a porcupine, warning how deep the water could rise.

  ‘She’s soaked,’ he said, sloshing back at a run.

  He allowed Mira a quick pat, and her heart sank to realise that the marsupial was cold and limp, which would guarantee pneumonia, if not death.

  Lockman shouted for assistance and instructed Cinq to rush the joey to a vet, but she ummed and ahhed, in hesitation.

  ‘It’s too far gone,’ she said. ‘A bullet would be kinder.’

  Uno laughed. ‘You don’t have kids, do you, Lyn? So you underestimate the value of a pet. I’ll take it, Lieutenant.’ Shuffling marked the sound of the exchange, then Uno jogged away.

  ‘Thank you!’ Mira called after him, thinking that maybe Davit Uno wasn’t so bad after all.

  Avoiding Lyn Cinq as she returned to the beach, Mira adjusted her sunshades to watch the scene again from a different angle, hoping to see the sniper who’d caused the joey to startle in the first place.

  Within seconds, she saw Josie grazing at Lockman’s feet again. Then the wallaby’s ears pricked towards the bridge, where the shape of a man was lying flat against the sand in the shadows of the two nearest pylons. Twitching one ear back to Lockman, the joey heard the same reaction from him that Mira saw now — and it panicked.

  Down! Lockman shouted as he lunged to protect Mirage, and two bodies rammed Mira’s ghost at once. Struck dead before he fell, poor Neville! Sei dived just as swiftly at Ben, taking him down with her.

  Mirage called out for him, and the memory caused Mira to remember something else — the sound of his mother screaming out for him. Not close, however. Her voice had sounded as if it had come from somewhere out on the bay.

  ‘Do you have binoculars, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Sure.’ He bumped them against her hand. ‘I brought the easy-reader too, in case you prefer it.’

  Trying the binoculars first, Mira did eventually choose the easy-reader, since it allowed her to see more of the bay at once.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ asked Cinq. ‘I thought she was blind?’

  ‘It comes and goes,’ Lockman said. ‘Give her some space, Corporal, and stay alert.’

  Mira heard her obey, walking well away, before Lockman leaned closer to whisper, ‘Have you got a bead on our sniper?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, he’s over there.’ Mira pointed over her shoulder but continued to pan the bay with the easy-reader. ‘There’s also a long yacht out there called the Lady Lucky II. I can see three men on deck. Two are shooting this way with rifles and the other is holding Ben’s mum by the hair — or he was, ten hours ago.’

  Lockman shouted the yacht’s name to Cinq with an order to get the information to Garland. ‘She should have intel from the sat-obs by now,’ he explained more quietly for Mira, ‘but the name will help. It’s rare to see
that angle of detail from space.’

  ‘It’s keeping its distance,’ Mira said, ‘but there’s another yacht coming this way. Looks almost identical except for the name. This one’s Navis Amoris.’ She turned her attention to the ghostly drama with Ben to check on him.

  Sei was shielding him with her body, exchanging weapons fire with the fast approaching yacht. This ain’t no bacon tree, she called to Lockman.

  It’s a ham-bush, he replied with additional hand signals that Mira could read, thanks to her lessons with Matron Sanchez. Lockman used a shorthand version, ordering Sei to rendezvous with him at another place. Sei replied with a nod and a hand signal of her own to wish him luck, then grabbed Ben by the shirt collar, half-dragging him into a patch of dune vines as bullets rained about them, spitting sand and fragments of palm trees.

  Keys! Lockman called, and Ben tossed his for the Camaro.

  Catching them, Lockman hauled Mira’s ghost to safety just as bullets stung the sand where she’d been. More stung the pavement following them, and punched three holes along the side of Ben’s car before shattering the side window. Mira’s heart leapt into her throat, just watching it.

  In seconds, Lockman had thrust her ghost into the passenger seat, but as he bounded over the bonnet, blood burst from his left bicep.

  ‘You’re shot!’ she cried.

  ‘Just a nick,’ he said, sounding less concerned than his ghost appeared to be at the time as he clutched his wound and slid over the hood and into the driver’s seat. Far more than a nick! Mira could see blood streaming from him as he struggled to start the engine.

  Wait, wait! panicked her ghost. We can’t leave Ben! But the car skidded backwards and turned, just as another two gunmen appeared from the scrub across the road to fire at her through the rear window.

  ‘There!’ Mira said, pointing. ‘Two bald men were hiding there!’ She described their heights and clothes to Lockman, then realised she could provide a better description if she could trace their shapes on a foggy window. Or better yet, she could use the easy-reader as a see-through clipboard and trace them with the inventory pen.

  Magnifying their weapons, and staring straight down the smoking barrels, she traced the peculiar shapes of their muzzles first. End on, the snouts of both handguns appeared to be triangular, but with the three points blunted.

  ‘Desert Eagles,’ Lockman said, taking the pen from her as soon as she’d finished tracing their most prominent facial features. ‘Expensive weapons, but there’s hardly a soldier anywhere who wouldn’t want one as a personal sidearm … Transfer this image to PC,’ he said after calling Cinq back to them. ‘Send a copy to the general, and get that pen back here to Miss Chambers. Better yet, check the van for a spare. I have a feeling we’ll soon be streaming information back to Garland in relay.’

  While he was talking, Mira used the sound of his voice to guess the position of his injured arm, and found his sleeve rolled up and his bicep bandaged.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked, flinching at her touch.

  She didn’t know how to answer that. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were injured?’

  ‘You had enough to worry about — and still do. Come on,’ he said, moving away. ‘Any chance you can do that trick again at the bridge?’

  ‘What trick?’ asked Cinq.

  ‘Classified.’ He led Mira away to the nearest pylon, where he requested the other noisy investigators to take a break from sifting the sand for bullet casings, shell fragments and other things that could make the beach unsafe for public use.

  Mira checked the two yachts, and noticed the crew of the nearest one had rolled up the sails and were motoring swiftly nearer to shore, keeping the ghosts of Ben and Corporal Sei pinned down in the vines against the dune with heavy weapons fire. Further out, the Lady Lucky II was holding position, while another three similar yachts crept in from the north, east and south, also providing fire support.

  ‘Hurry up with that pen,’ Mira called to Cinq. The Navis Amoris was nearly ashore.

  ‘Sorry …’ Lockman bumped a spare pen unexpectedly against her hand. ‘She already slipped me a spare.’ Mira grabbed it, thankful she wouldn’t need to rewind time again. Instead, she could skip ahead a few minutes to the beach landing, and finally see what happened to Ben.

  Bracing herself for the slightly sharper pain, she adjusted her rays and saw the yacht come in close enough to let four men jump overboard and splash ashore while three others converged on Ben from the bridge, scrub and mangroves. One of them shot Sei in the leg as she hurried to re-load, while another punched Ben so hard it knocked him out with a single blow. The tallest and skinniest of them came from the nearest yacht, and Mira recognised him from Greppia’s shop as the assistant floor manager who was also Gregan’s son, Greggie.

  Plan C, he told the others. We use him to get the blind bitch.

  Hey, Greggie! called a young bald guy, dressed as a police constable. What about her? Want me to plug her?

  Greggie looked at Sei, then grabbed her by the collar, wrenched open her shirt to reveal her sports bra, and licked his lips. Nah, Douggie. I want that pleasure myself. Stow him in the hold, he said, pointing to Ben.

  ‘What do you see?’ Lockman asked.

  ‘These guys are big bullies with guns.’

  ‘Can you draw them?’

  ‘Sure, but I recognise one already as Greggie Greppia.’

  ‘Gregan’s son?’

  ‘Yep. Assistant floor manager. Gangly piece of work who fancies himself as a ladies’ man.’

  Mira felt helpless watching him, watching Sei fighting for Ben’s life as well as her own, kicking and struggling every step of the way down the beach — until the bald cop, Douggie, punched her unconscious. Then Greggie could handle her. He hefted her over his skinny shoulder and headed for the yacht, with one hand already exploring the shape of her thigh and higher.

  ‘Poor Tarin. I think it’s already too late for her.’

  ‘They killed her?’

  ‘Worse. They took her for sport. Get me a boat, Lieutenant! Fast! We have to go after them!’

  ‘We do, but not you. Garland would skin me alive if I let you get closer to them — and she can’t make a move on Greppia until she can be sure of taking down or at least spotting Mr Mystery.’

  ‘I know!’ Mira cried, feeling more shackled than ever by that agreement, and she shuddered to think of that ugly Greggie’s hands all over Tarin.

  ‘Just tell me everything you can,’ Lockman said, ‘and we’ll send a whole fleet after them.’

  ‘Everything, huh? Well hang on.’ She grabbed his hand and tugged him across to the ghost of the first sniper. Sand squeaked underfoot as she ran with him across to the third pylon, which was now ankle deep in water. ‘The one who shot Neville was lying here,’ she said, shaping her hands around the spectre, ‘with his feet that way.’

  Using the easy-reader and the spare digital pen, she traced the shape of his head in profile as the sniper focused down the sights of his rifle, and tapped the earpiece of his headset as if he was listening to a voice.

  ‘Looks like a bolt action three-oh-eight,’ Lockman said as Mira traced the details of the barrel. ‘Which means he’s most likely a civilian.’

  ‘Or a quirky merc,’ Cinq said, approaching to swap digital pens again. ‘I’ve seen mercenaries who still prefer them.’

  ‘Corporal,’ Lockman said, sounding frustrated, ‘you’ve got ears like a wallaby.’

  ‘… and a mouth like a steel trap,’ Cinq said, ‘so there’s no chance I’d blab about her being a psychic.’

  Mira opened her mouth to argue, then thought better of it. She stayed astride the sniper and peered down the sights herself, adjusting her rays to watch him from the beginning as she and Ben first arrived at the beach. ‘He wasn’t aiming at either me or Neville at first,’ she reported. ‘He was watching Ben and waiting for a signal — perhaps from the Navis Amoris. He keeps glancing that way, and then you joined us, Lieutenant, and he looked worrie
d, as if he recognised you as being the bigger risk to their plans.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Lockman replied. ‘Plan A would have been to take you alive. Or Plan B by any means.’

  ‘Or C by trade, dead or alive?’ Mira asked.

  ‘I’d count that as B,’ Cinq said. ‘But I’d prefer to argue that directly with them. Can you sense which direction they left?’

  ‘North.’ Mira pointed. ‘They sailed past that mudflat on the far side, where they met briefly with the Lady Lucky II. Ben’s unconscious in the back but they let Mel see him before sailing in opposite directions.’

  ‘Rings true,’ Cinq said, kicking sand into the water. ‘Mel Chiron told surf-rescue that she thought she saw her son aboard another craft before they beat her unconscious.’

  ‘Apparently,’ Lockman said, ‘Gregan called surf-rescue to airlift her body from the rocks at Point Lookout. If so, he must have high-tailed it straight there after they were done here.’

  ‘Has anyone spoken to Mel about that?’ Mira asked. ‘Maybe she overheard where they were taking him?’

  ‘Detectives interviewed her at the hospital,’ Lockman reminded her. ‘But she was pretty tight-lipped. Even to her boyfriend. Almost as if they’d told her they’d kill him if she gave that much away.’

  Mira huffed in frustration, but knew one thing for certain: Mel must have been terrified — and convinced that silence was the best way to keep Ben safe for now. Or else her boyfriend, the cop, would have been the first person she called.

  ‘Can’t say as I blame her,’ Cinq said, ‘considering what happened to that nurse who worked with Greppia’s old mother. What was her name again?’

  ‘Grey,’ Lockman replied, ‘Shelley Grey. She died here too with her boyfriend, but the cops are still short on details of what really happened.’