‘What’s the difference whether these bastards were born here, or flew in from Baghdad or wherever last month? I don’t get why you’re all looking so worried and surprised, it’s not like this is something new.’
‘That’s the point Mr President,’ Martin explained. ‘It isn’t something new. It is, however, like Timothy McVeigh and Oklahoma City; not like Osama bin Laden and New York.’
‘Oh Christ,’ President Brock swore. He waved in the direction of the Rose Garden. ‘Why did I go out there and say all that. Shit. I need to get out of here. Take me to Dallas.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sydney, Australia
Friday 2 pm
Bryn Gideon, dressed in running shorts and a sweaty singlet, took the turn into Bligh Street on the homestretch of her favourite 20 kilometre run. Granted, pounding the city footpaths wasn’t fun, but most of her course took her away from the traffic, through the Domain, out to the stone-cut Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, then twice around the Botanic Gardens. The best section was along the foreshore of Farm Cove - or Woccanmagully as the indigenous inhabitants had called the tidal inlet off Sydney Harbour - because it was always, while running here, that it sank in she was home again.
She took a right off Bligh, another left, and then slowed to a jog for the last 20 metres and up the three steps to the only door in the laneway. Placing her palm casually on the metal plate next to the door, as if she was just catching her breath, Gideon waited while her vital stats were read by the Back Door security system, and then used her flashcard to open the door. Once over the threshold and with the outer door now closed, she waved at the camera while it did a visual scan, gave the ‘battle on’ password to provide a voice ID, and pushed through the interior door as it unlocked.
Gideon crossed the marble-floored lobby that provided direct access to the gym and cafeteria, and lift access to either the Back Door Hub or the Redback Bivouac. She took the lift to the latter; up eight floors to the huge lounge of the extensive living quarters she shared with several of her closest friends and colleagues. She yanked off her runners, threw herself onto a couch and lay there, staring at the ceiling.
‘You home now then?’ Shane Cooper asked, from the kitchen where he was speed-dicing something green.
‘Yep,’ Gideon replied, hoping Coop would bring her…
‘Here,’ he said, appearing beside her with a large frosted glass. ‘It’s homemade recovery juice, my latest recipe.’
Gideon sat up and took the drink with a grateful smile. Home again, home again. ‘Where’s Triko?’ she asked.
‘Taking a swim,’ Coop said, returning to the kitchen.
Evan Wade, Gideon noted, didn’t seem to have moved a muscle while she’d been out, he was still watching TV with headphones on. Marco Banda was reading the newspaper and swearing a lot.
Five of the nine Redbacks lived permanently in the communal but spacious quarters on the top floors of the Back Door building. Doc Rossi might have thought their retrieval agency sounded like a back-alley private eye business, but she couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Their bivouac had a pool and sauna on the roof; lounge, kitchen, games and computer areas on the open-plan eighth floor; and individual living suites on the seventh floor, each with a bedroom, sitting room and bathroom.
Downstairs in the op-centre there was so much high-tech equipment that ‘state of the art’ was a cliché that needed an upgrade. The Hub’s intel and tech crews alone numbered 15, and that didn’t include chef Lulu, any of the mechanics, or mad Peaches, who - as well as being their personal trainer, medic and masseuse - also cut everyone’s hair.
None of the Redbacks were required to live in - this wasn’t the army after all, but all nine had suites, when needed. And they all chose to use the suites just before a job or during training.
But as Coop often said, who wouldn’t want to live in place bigger than his parents’ entire home, with a pool on the roof and a gym in the basement. Not to mention, though he also often did, having any and every kind of gizmo his heart desired - just by putting in a request for it.
Gideon, Coop, Triko, Wade and Marco resided happily together - much like grown-up uni students. In fact, that was exactly what most of them were: highly paid, highly trained, highly disciplined and highly motivated uni students. All except Marco who ran a martial arts studio in his spare time instead.
The downside of living above the shop was that work was always there - much like it had been in the army; except that now Gideon felt like she also had a life. And this life was all positive action, saving lives, doing good.
Oh bullshit! She knew she loved this job because it was all about the adventure, the travel, the lifestyle, the money, the danger. It was about making their own rules, and dealing with the bad guys and saving some good ones. This was the best damn job a woman could ask for.
An insistent beeping recalled her to the downside. She rolled off the couch to press the comm button on the coffee table.
‘Yes?’ she said.
‘You got a minute Bryn? We have some news on that guy we’re monitoring.’
‘Yeah, I’ll be down in a sec, Boss.’ Getting to her feet, she realised they were too tired to be pushed back into her runners. What’s more, if the director wanted her in person, now, he’d have to put up with her sweaty self.
She took the lift to the fourth floor and headed up the hall to the Recon Room. Oliver and Chrissy, the two resident techies in the room, waved at her as she dropped into an empty chair opposite Back Door’s head honcho and all-round boss, Commander Eric Ryder, Special Forces (ret.).
‘Your man has been fishing big time,’ he said.
‘Alan himself?’ Gideon asked.
‘No, his flunkeys. They’ve put out a hundred tentacles since he called them from Wellington on Wednesday. It seems they’ve finally got a hit.’
‘What kind of hit?’
‘Not precisely sure, yet,’ said Oliver, their prime tech-head who was all but cocooned by his banks of computer monitors. ‘But we think it’s either a member of the not-exactly-successful SEAL rescue team or, maybe, that soldier your Dr Rossi saw.’
‘If they’re not one and the same,’ Gideon said.
‘You still think the Americans were helping Mila Ifran’s rebels?’ Ryder’s tone suggested the theory was quite within the realms of possibility.
‘It wouldn’t be the first time. And how better to look heroic than to free hostages you’d taken yourself.’
‘You need a holiday, Bryn; you’re getting more cynical than I am,’ he said.
‘Then shoot me now, Boss, please. I thought I had years to catch up to you.’
Eric Ryder had been part of the action for way longer than Gideon or any of her Redbacks, and had seen more death and destruction, in more world hotspots than he probably cared to recall. An SAS trooper, more often than not on covert missions, he had 15 more years of engagement in foreign and dangerous parts than even Triko, who was the oldest on Gideon’s team. The Director of Back Door since its inception five years before, Ryder was part boss, part mentor, part uncle, and friend to them all.
To Gideon, Ryder was the closest thing she’d ever had to a father. It was he who’d requested her for the position of Redback commander and joint recruiter.
‘So what have we got?’ she asked him.
Ryder gave the thumbs up to Oliver, who looked, as always in these moments, like a supremely satisfied cat.
‘First call,’ Oliver explained, ‘is an incoming one to one of Alan Wagner’s research assistants, in fact his most tenacious assistant. This bird deserves a raise, or maybe a job with us.’ Oliver tapped one of his keyboards to play the recorded telephone conversation through the Recon Room’s speaker system.
‘Berenice Nyland?’ It was man’s voice, with an American accent, asking the question.
‘Yes, how may I help you?’
‘I believe you’ve been looking for someone who will talk about the recent incident in the
Pacific.’
‘If you’re talking about the hostage incident on Laui Island, then yes.’
No mincing words with this girl, Gideon thought.
‘I was there,’ the man said.
‘Were you one of the hostages?’
‘No. I was there to expedite their release.’
‘You don’t sound like an Australian,’ she said.
‘Yeah well, believe me, I wish I had been with them. I was with the other team.’
‘The other team?’ Berenice was giving nothing away.
‘Yes. My team created a significant, ah, diversion, but did not rescue anyone.’
‘A diversion? Is that what that was?’ Gideon snorted.
‘Can you tell me who you are?’ Berenice asked.
‘I’d rather not at this stage. But trust me, I can give your man the story he is looking for.’
‘Okay, I don’t mean to be dismissive, but you haven’t really told me anything that we have not been putting out there in order to get a response.’
‘Right, um,’ he hesitated. ‘Tell your man we landed on Laui at 6.32 pm. If the hostages were even still on the island at that stage, he will know that it was us who blew up the swimming pool.’
‘You blew up the swimming pool? What on earth for? What did that achieve?’
Gideon was amused that Berenice hadn’t been able to resist that question.
‘Not a lot, as you can imagine,’ the man said, wearily. ‘I’ll call back in two hours on this number. If your guy wishes to meet, make sure he’s available to talk to me then. I will not call again after that.’ He hung up.
‘When was that?’ Gideon asked.
‘At 11.30 this morning,’ Ryder said.
‘Please tell me he rang back.’
Oliver, with a Cheshire cat grin, said, ‘One-thirty on the dot.
This time we traced the call. Our mystery ‘maybe-commando’ is ringing from a small hotel in Singapore.’
‘That’s good,’ Gideon noted.
‘Why is that good?’ Ryder asked.
‘The fact that he’s an American in Singapore and not some yobbo in Manly is promising.’
Ryder frowned. ‘But we don’t want Wagner to get a story out of this, whoever it comes from.’
‘No, we just don’t want him to make a story out of us, Boss. But we can’t keep a good journo - well a talking-head with expert staff - from doing a story at all. He was right in the middle of it, so it would be strange indeed if he didn’t. Other journos would jump on the story then.’
‘True,’ Ryder agreed.
‘Also, I’m curious as to what happened on Laui.’
‘You? Curious?’ Ryder made it sound like a rare thing indeed.
‘Yes Boss; sometimes,’ Gideon said impatiently. ‘I want to know why - no, how - a SEAL operation could have been such a monumental fuck-up. It is not how they do things.’
‘Also true,’ Ryder shrugged then nodded to Oliver.
‘Berenice Nyland.’ It was the voice of Alan Wagner’s prize investigative ferret again.
‘Is your man there?’ It was the same American again.
‘Yes, I’ll put him on.’
‘Alan Wagner here.’
‘Mr Wagner, as your offsider no doubt told you, I have information regarding the hostage incident in which you were involved.’
‘So you were one of the Navy SEALs who blew up the island?’
Gideon rolled her eyes. ‘Good one Alan. Tell him what happened, don’t ask for info.’
For a few seconds there was nothing but a strange muffled noise, possibly a conversation filtered through a hand over the receiver.
‘I think that was Berenice hitting Wagner with a desk chair,’ Oliver explained. ‘So wishing I could’ve helped her.’
Gideon gave Oliver an understanding nod; the poor guy had been listening to Wagner’s phone calls for nearly two days.
‘Do you want to know what I have to tell you, or not?’ The American had obviously decided to continue.
‘Yes, of course. This whole, ah, incident has been traumatic, for myself personally. I wish to get to the bottom of what happened on that island and why,’ Alan said.
‘My men and I are being made the scapegoats for the…’
‘Debacle?’ Alan suggested, in a not even remotely helpful way.
The man sighed. ‘Yes, the debacle.’
‘Okay, but apart from that admission, I need some other proof that you are kosher,’ Alan said. ‘You’ve no idea how many calls we’ve had on this matter.’
‘Exactly two,’ Oliver said. ‘And both from this guy.’
‘You and the other hostages were taken off the island by a group of Australian commandoes and taken to New Zealand by submarine and then helicopter.’
‘Wow. Is that what we are?’ Gideon smiled.
‘And you?’ Alan asked.
‘We, apparently, arrived just after the Australians did; but were involved in a firefight with the rebels who had taken you hostage.’
‘Just after?’ Gideon laughed. ‘We’d been lounging in those sand dunes for five hours before they arrived and we made our move.’
‘Shut up Bryn,’ Ryder said.
Oliver, who hit the pause button every time someone in the room passed comment, hit it again.
‘Okay, you appear to be the real deal,’ Alan was saying.
‘I cannot go on camera,’ the real deal stated, ‘or give you my name, but I am prepared to meet and give you the story.’
‘Excellent,’ Alan said to him, and then, ‘Berenice, can we make a time for him to come in?’
‘Mr Wagner.’ The guy’s tone suggested he was sorry he’d made his call. ‘I cannot, and will not, come to you. I am not even, surprisingly, in Australia.’
‘Oh.’
‘I will meet you in Singapore on Sunday.’
‘Singapore? But…’
‘Yes, Singapore. Can you make it?’
‘Um…’
‘Good. I will call you back on this number at 6 pm, your time, today; at which time you will tell me where you will be staying in Singapore, and give me a cell number on which I can reach you at any time.’
‘I can give you the phone,’ but the line was already dead, ‘number. Bastard!’ Alan hung up his end too.
‘What do you think?’ Ryder asked.
‘If he wasn’t on Laui, then he’s been briefed by someone who was,’ Gideon said.
‘But why?’
‘Why was he briefed? Or why was he on Laui?’
‘No Bryn. Why did he call Alan Wagner?’
‘The guy said his SEALs were taking the fall,’ Oliver volunteered.
Gideon leant back in her chair. ‘While that is such a government thing to do - and I don’t just mean the American administration, as we all know from personal experience right here at home - it is not something the military would do. There is no way the US Navy would allow that to happen to its own.’
‘So, what then?’ Ryder asked.
‘So this whole thing is very suss.’ Gideon pulled at the front of her singlet to un-stick it from her body.
‘Okay, I’ve got a few theories,’ she said. ‘This interview is a set-up by the US Navy to find out what Alan Wagner knows about their cocked-up mission. Or it’s a set-up by the CIA who wants to know what Alan knows about us - you know ‘the commandoes’ who beat them to it. Or the guy is neither, and the bungled mission was not a SEAL deal, but some other kind of black ops.
‘If it’s the latter then, either it’s still a quest for info, or the bloke screwed things so badly that he is copping the blame.’
Ryder got up to wander the room, while Oliver added his thoughts. ‘I’m hoping he’s a CIA hitman who wants to lure Wagner to a sticky end to silence him once and for all.’
Gideon laughed. ‘In that case he’s probably really Jana Rossi, impersonating an American bloke. I know one thing, whoever he is and whatever the real reason, we should be in on that meeting.’
‘
Why? It’s not our concern.’
‘Unless, of course, this American gets or has more intel on us, and gives it to that lugnut.’
‘Good point.’
‘I think we might have to offer this hound a big distracting bone.’ Gideon pushed her chair over to the workstation next to Oliver’s. ‘We certainly need to try and take control of the situation. Okay mate, bring me up a nice big map of SouthEast Asia, with a sidebar on the current locations of all A and B-grade celebrities. We need to find that special job for Fido Wagner.’
Oliver hit his keyboard with lightening speed and seconds later the requested map and information popped up on the 60 cm LCD screen in front of them.
‘I love this technology,’ Gideon said. ‘Although mostly what I love is that you know how to work it. Okay, we need to match Alan Wagner with the most likely celeb in order to get him insisting that he meets this CIA-SEAL-scapegoat, um, there,’ she pointed, ‘instead of Singapore. As I will already be there - assuming you remembered to book everything, Oliver - then I can stone both my birds.’
‘By yourself?’ Ryder asked.
Gideon glanced at the Boss, as he swung around on his sixth return trip pacing the room, and said ‘Better book Coop and Triko to come with me. The other guys are way overdue for time off.’
‘Woo-hoo, what about her, Bryn?’ Oliver indicated the picture of a person called Sophie Deans that he’d brought up from the celeb list.
‘Is she famous?’ Gideon asked.
Oliver’s gobsmacked reaction answered that question. In fact it seemed even the Boss, a man she figured well beyond any midlife need to be ogling waif-like 20-something brunettes with very large boobs, seemed to know who this Sophie person was. What’s more he too was stunned that she didn’t.
‘What?’ she shrugged.
‘You really need to get out more Bryn,’ he said.
‘Probably, but clue me in here guys, who the hell is she?’
‘You mean apart from being the daughter of Dan and Edie Hannon,’ Ryder began.
‘Oh, well them I know.’ Of course she did. Gideon wouldn’t exactly be Australian if she didn’t know the nation’s best-loved television and showbiz couple. They’d been news for near on a century, well, half of one.
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