by AA Bell
‘It does,’ argued Detective Grady, ‘if they’re using him as a lure to get her. They consider her valuable.’
‘Rightly so,’ Lockman said. ‘But if they were going to trade Ben for her dead or alive, they should have tried that already. They’ve had time, means and opportunity — and General Garland went to great lengths to fake her death so they’d get what they want, more or less, without needing to renege on letting him go.’
‘That was before they found me alive at the shop,’ Mira said, and a look of comprehension crossed her face that made her glow with the inner beauty of intelligence. ‘I get it now. The Greppias tried to fake my death too — and they have no intentions of releasing Ben. They need to keep him to control me.’
Lockman nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see him. ‘Emergency services were instructed to report that all lives were lost in the fire — instructed by Sergeant Patterson after he relieved me of my field commission. So it’s lance corporal again, ma’am, and strictly speaking, I’m here on leave.’
‘You were bumped two ranks?’ Grady asked.
‘Long story,’ Lockman replied, shifting his feet anxiously. He could feel eyes all around him, just as he had at the beach just before the joey ran off. ‘It’s not over yet. Detective, you have to get these ladies to safety, while I go stir up the hornets’ nest; see if I can’t ID who they’ve really got in there.’
‘Hey, we’re not damsels,’ Gabby argued. ‘I know how to drive, and for Ben’s sake I’m willing to provide backup if you need it. Boat, car, jet ski, you name it. But if it’s really so dangerous you should take Grady, and I’ll call in a flotilla of SWAT and water rats from the Edukitty. Mira and I, we can meet them out in the cat and point the way in to you.’
‘Quiet,’ Mira whispered and Lockman noticed her reaching nonchalantly for the glove compartment. ‘I think I can hear two …’
‘Freeze!’ ordered one of the two spec-ops men who appeared on either side of Lockman, both bearing Steyr assault rifles, holstered Desert Eagles and belts full of grenades of all types from frag, stun and smoke to incendiary. Gabby’s arms shot up like rockets, while Detective Grady and Lockman followed suit more professionally — then the taller of the two, a lance corporal in black fatigues, slung aside his rifle. With a quick-draw of his baby Desert Eagle, he moved forward cautiously to disarm Lockman. He raised his night-owl visor, but it made it no easier for Lockman to see his face, since he also wore a balaclava under his helmet, as did his sergeant. As they closed in, Lockman recognised them as Sergeant Brette and Lance Corporal Finnigan, both shortlisted by Garland for working with Mira. From their profiles, Lockman knew them both to be skilled snipers with additional specialties.
‘What have we got here?’ said Finnigan. He snatched off Lockman’s slim-line headset and night-owls, causing a loud squawk of feedback from their own helmets. ‘Hey, Sarge, this guy’s been listening!’ Finnigan snapped the visor, smashed it against a tree and cast the broken pieces over his shoulder into the shrubbery, then did the same with Lockman’s night-vision binoculars; just a pair he’d bought himself from a camping store.
‘I’ll need to be reimbursed for those,’ Lockman said, egging them to assess them.
‘Delta channel now,’ Brette said into his headset, then he turned to Lockman, brandishing the sharp end of his assault rifle to remind everyone who was in charge. A glint of recognition crossed Brette’s expression, but Lockman couldn’t guess why unless they’d been briefed about who he was from his dealings with General Garland or Sergeant Patterson.
‘Pow-wow time,’ Brette said. ‘Hands on heads, people, in a row facing the vehicle, then squat slowly and sit cross-legged.’
Reading their eyes, Lockman could tell they were professional, which meant they’d only fire as a last resort on home soil and he clenched his fists, feeling adrenaline pump into his veins as he wondered how fast he could take them without hurting them.
‘We don’t have time for this!’ Mira shouted and from Lockman’s position on the other side of her open passenger door, he caught a glimpse of her raising a police Glock from behind her back — a sidearm not unlike his own. As she caught their attention too, Lockman seized the opportunity and lunged backwards against the lance corporal, falling with him to the ground and grunting at the flame of pain around his chest. He clamped both hands around the corporal’s trigger finger, snapping the bone as he grappled for control of the Baby Eagle and caused Finnigan to shoot the firing mechanism of Brette’s assault rifle — a one in a million shot that Lockman took as a sign that his bad luck must finally be changing.
Lockman flipped from his back onto his feet, adrenaline keeping his ribs from aching too much, as he retrieved his Glock as well as Finnigan’s baby Desert Eagle. He smashed the mission recorder and camera on the side of Finnigan’s helmet using the butt of his Glock, then moved to Brette and performed the same surgery on his.
‘No pow-wow for the people today,’ Lockman said. ‘My orders were to prevent her falling into unfriendly hands.’ He noticed that Innes-Grady had retrieved his sidearm from Mira, and Lockman signalled for him to collect their rifles and grenade belts as well — and as Gabby sidestepped to join the shield of bodies for Mira, Lockman took pity on Finnigan, who was nursing his finger.
‘Get some ice on that,’ he said, shedding his fishing vest and tossing it at Finnigan. ‘Check the pockets, mate. You should be lucky. Helmets off too, please, gentlemen. It won’t hurt your team to fret about you until I’m ready to fill them in. They should be busy enough with surveillance on the house until then.’
‘Fill them in about what?’ asked Finnigan, resentfully.
‘Something bigger than we’ve been briefed on,’ said the sergeant with a grin that lightning made appear downright evil. ‘Salute,’ he told Finnigan, then did the same himself, directing his respect at Lockman. ‘This here is The Locksmith.’
Finnigan reacted with surprise, then awe followed by a full-blown salute with his broken finger, causing Lockman to raise a suspicious brow at both of them, having only heard that nickname once before — in another place, another life. He’d earned it the first time he’d made lieutenant, under a name that he’d been forced to change for the safety of his two surviving sisters and the trouble that had tried to follow him home from a mission in the Pacific. However, that old personnel file should have been archived in a basement somewhere under honourably discharged.
‘You’re mistaken, friend,’ he replied. ‘My name is Lockman.’
Brette laughed. ‘I never did know your name, mate. I was half-dead. I would have been fully-dead that night if it weren’t for you holdin’ my head outta water until that Chinook came in to pull us out. Damn, boy, that collision with the fuel tanker and rogue frigate? I’ve toured some war zones in my time, but I ain’t never seen nor heard an explosion that big!’
‘You’ve got me confused with someone else.’
‘Nah, you’re The Locksmith all right. You got us out of the brig of that frig so fast, you’re either that, or a bad-ass magician.’
Lightning slashed the sky and rain began to pelt against Lockman’s face in earnest, as if mocking him. ‘That sounds like black-ops to me.’ He holstered his Glock to shield his face from increasing rain, while still holding them at bay with the point of Finnigan’s Baby Eagle — ‘baby’ seeming such a joke now as he wielded it, since it weighed more than his Glock and was bigger. ‘Do I look like black ops? Now get your helmets off. Detective Grady and I are in urgent need of them.’
‘Why?’ asked Grady. ‘Next time I see Gregan, I need to look like I’m still on his team.’
‘Next time you see Gregan,’ Lockman replied, ‘you’re taking him down. As the only cop here, you’re about the only one who legally can.’
‘That ain’t quite right,’ Brette said with a wink. ‘This here is a mining lease, mate, and that there beach house is built where there’s s’posed to be a processing plant. Building permits were done on the cheap and filed as i
ncomplete. So under the national utilities protection act, we don’t need civil police leading the charge here. We’ve got all the discretionary powers we need for national defence, and we already got orders to keep our eyes on the place. So if you want to take a peek at the occupants, just say the word. I owe you that much, and if you’re here protecting her, it can’t hurt any of us.’
‘To be honest,’ Lockman said, ‘I doubt those hostages are hostages. I suspect they’re decoys.’
‘We’re here to check for sure,’ Brette said. ‘Make sure she gets in the hands of the right people.’
‘Uh oh,’ Gabby said as the cool rain began to pelt down harder. ‘Mira’s gone!’
Lockman spun around, horrified to see it was true. She’d disappeared while their backs were turned, and taken the handcuffs with her.
Grady lunged for the Landcruiser to check, while Gabby ran to check the back, but Lockman could already see from the marks on the dampening road that she’d gone underneath. He could also guess where she was headed, and the thought of her facing gunmen alone tore his guts to shreds.
‘Grab your gear,’ he said as he tossed Finnigan’s Baby Eagle back to him. ‘We have to stop her.’
Holding the handcuffs in her cleavage as she ran so they wouldn’t clank or fall out, Mira couldn’t hear anyone coming after her yet but she knew it wouldn’t take long.
She didn’t dare to second guess Lockman at strategies for escape and evasion, but she could readily guess how he might expect a blind girl to try using the fastest and easiest path possible. So she avoided it, leaving the gravel road quietly and dashing from tree to tree as quietly as possible, hoping the ghostly forest hadn’t changed much in the past twenty hours. The controls on her sunshades remained unresponsive and she was still stuck with the muddy shade of yesterday.
The rising wind howled between branches, causing fresh tripping hazards, while whipping her face with leaves and rain. She stumbled and fell into sandy mud twice, but the scrub seemed thickest closer to the road where the regrowth leaned to catch light during the day, so she weaved her way further inland, aiming to circle around and avoid the most trafficked route to the house. Then the wind betrayed a herd of boots on the road. Hard to say how many. She guessed at least three sets — one pair jogging slightly ahead of the others — and she hugged the nearest eucalypt, keeping it between her and her pursuers.
‘I thought she was blind,’ she heard Finnigan say as they overtook her position. ‘Who else would wear sunshades at night, or that colour willingly?’
A hand touched her shoulder and another gripped her mouth as strong arms spun her about and pulled her against a broad chest, but she didn’t cry out. She could tell who it was from his touch and the salty smell of his skin.
‘What will it take?’ Lockman whispered, hugging her close, cheek to cheek and with his lips close against her ear. He robbed her cleavage of the handcuffs, and then released her enough to allow her to answer.
‘Let me go in,’ she pleaded. ‘If he’s not there, I need to know where they took him.’
‘What if I clear the house first, would you wait here, where it’s safe?’
‘I’m not an invalid! I don’t care if I die trying to save him!’
‘Mira,’ he said as if she’d injured him. ‘I do.’ He tilted her chin up as if she might look into his face and see how much he’d come to care about her — his voice and touch betraying his relief at having found her before any of Greppia’s people — but in yesterday’s forest, he was little more than empty air. He stroked her cheek, reminding her that he was real as he brushed aside a splash of mud from her face and pulled her closer, his body remaining invisible, but his chest feeling almost steamy in the driving rain. ‘You can’t imagine what it’s been like getting to know you … watching you and knowing I can’t ever …’
She closed her eyes, better able to see him in her mind, and his lips came to hers, his mouth growing swiftly demanding yet his muscled arms engulfing her so tenderly she felt drawn by his inner strength and knew there was still so much that he was holding back from her. Guilt rose along with her hand to push him away — Ben so near and still needing her — but as his lips pursued hers, she sensed her strength waning. He felt warm and strong and safe, and she needed more, flames of desire licked up from deep within her, longing to consume as much of his forbidden touch as she could get. She returned his kiss, naïvely and sweetly at first but building, learning, trying to copy him and return a little of the raw pleasure he was giving to her. She sensed the inner music of his soul singing to hers and cupped his face, hanging onto him, hoping to draw on his strength to tame the wild animal that was growing within her. With her eyes closed she became one with him, exploring him, melting and growing together, until she felt a surge of strength and animal passion from within him that was beyond imagining.
He broke free, leaving her gasping.
‘You’re amazing,’ he whispered. ‘And I’m an idiot. I should have expressed myself more … professionally.’ His voice cracked, and she caressed his face, undaunted this time by his five o’clock shadow. She read his expression like Braille and found his brow furrowed with the deepest worry.
Mira let her hands fall away, not knowing what to say.
He sighed and leaned his forehead against hers. ‘I think I just made things worse for both of us.’
Trembling, she felt the weight of his regret but sensed the invisible bond that went deeper now between them, still lingering along with the taste of him upon her lips.
‘You have to stay here,’ he pleaded. ‘I can’t bear the thought of you getting hurt again.’ He caressed her hair where the bullet had grazed within a heartbeat of taking her life and the line of the long fresh scratch down her face and neck. ‘It makes me weak just to think of it, and I still have to …’ He gulped, as if struggling to regain his composure. ‘I still have to go in there and do whatever it takes to bring him back to you.’ Cupping her face with both hands, he held himself away from her. ‘I need to know you’re safe, Mira, or I’ll fail you.’ Then he swung away and was gone as silently as he’d come, leaving her desolate and worried now for them both.
‘Did you find her?’ asked Brette as Lockman approached their rendezvous in scrub near the garage.
He nodded, preferring not to talk about it.
Finnigan finished tying off a makeshift splint for his trigger finger using twigs bound by a dressing from his medi-pouch, then tossed Lockman his fishing vest, still padded to some extent by ice-water. ‘Will she stay out the way with the ranger?’
Lockman shrugged, hoping so, but he knew Mira’s allegiance belonged to Chiron, along with her heart. If she stayed back, it was only because she’d been so stunned by his own breach of her trust. She’d responded to his kiss eventually, but only because he’d become so desperately forceful to draw any response at all from her. He could still see her face, so angelic and fragile, gasping in shock. She had every right now to believe her initial resentment of him and everything he stood for had been justified, but his relief in catching her in time had been so great and his need to touch her so hot, he hadn’t been able to stop himself. Now he’d have the rest of his life to regret it, whether he brought Ben Chiron back to her alive or not.
Whichever way it went inside the house now, he was screwed. She’d never trust him again.
‘To business,’ he said, determined to end it the best way for her at least. ‘Where are Grady and the others?’
‘We’ve got all sides of the house covered,’ Brette replied. ‘Orders are to hold position unless we hear trouble, but your mate, the traffic hound, has some blue brassy balls. He’s right up in there by the front doorbell, unarmed and waiting for the signal to arrange it for us. He aims to bring one or two to the door while you sneak in from behind. The right side of the house has a laundry window with a broken lock beside the hot water system.’
Through the darkness and rain it was hard for Lockman to see the formal driveway, let alone Grady at
the front door, until lightning forked across the sky, turning night into day.
‘Got him,’ he said, performing a quick weapons check. Aside from his Glock and a spare ten-round magazine, he only had a fishing knife, a mini boy-scout knife attached to his car keys, a few fish-hooks, sinkers and a razor blade to peel off his itchiest whiskers at the first opportunity.
Finnigan handed him a second Glock, almost identical to his own, and he recognised it as Grady’s. ‘He says he’s got a story about the girl that should draw out more than one of them to us, making it easier, but if that goes south, you’ll need it.’
‘Give him that, too,’ Brette said, tapping Finnigan’s helmet to indicate his night-owl visor. ‘I got a man about to arrange an accident with power, and it’ll work better in there than out here in this shitty weather.’
‘You’ll be roasted by Garland for aiding me,’ Lockman warned, since soldiers assigned to surveillance were only permitted a narrow range of initiatives, and stirring up their targets was rarely one of them.
‘Aiding who, mate?’ Brette tapped his mission recorder, reminding Lockman that he’d smashed it. ‘Only visitor I saw going in was a traffic cop on their payroll — and Finnigan’s visor must have gone troppo in the rain. That’s what the report will say. He prefers the night vision he was born with anyway.’
‘Thanks,’ Lockman said. ‘I’m good for it.’
Brette patted him on the back as he crouched to go. ‘Don’t get dead or you’ll wreck the rest of our night with paperwork.’
Lockman nodded with a wink of appreciation to Finnigan too. ‘Sorry about the finger,’ he said, and then headed off for the house, wondering why they were still pretending to help him. No doubt Garland knew he was back in her playground. She must have noticed that one of Patterson’s headsets didn’t leave with his team. So perhaps she’d decided to re-embrace him rather than having him operate alone and unpredictably?