‘Where should we start?’ Ruth asked the room in general.
Jana crossed her arms. ‘How about Bryn, who does not believe in coincidences, explains how this doesn’t compound the weirdness that I commented on, just last night, while we were in pursuit of all those men.’
Gideon nodded agreeably. ‘The mystery commando, who we now know as Rawley, originally wanted to meet Alan in Singapore. We - obviously keeping tabs on the errant journo - wanted to contain that situation. So we organised the photo shoot with Sophie Deans, so that Alan would have a believable reason to convince Rawley to meet here instead. Following so far?’
Jana scowled, but nodded.
‘Kelman, your redhead from Laui, was here in Chiang Mai because he was following Rawley.’
Jana narrowed her eyes. ‘And what? You wanted to contain Alan and Rawley here, because this is where you have a house?’
‘Sort of,’ Gideon smiled. ‘But mostly because I had to be in Chiang Mai today anyway. I had an appointment with a possible new recruit, and we didn’t know how long the Wagner thing would take. So, you see? Deliberate planning, not coincidence.’
‘Yeah, except for me,’ Jana pointed at her own face. ‘And Ruth. And you all knowing Ruth. And why are you all laughing again?’
Gideon leant forward. ‘I am here, in Chiang Mai, because you are Jana. You are here, because I am. Where I go, they go,’ she waved at Coop and Triko. ‘And Ruth is here because we all are. You are my possible new recruit,’ Gideon said.
‘We hope,’ Triko added.
Jana nodded. ‘I see. I’m going home now,’ she said, although she didn’t move.
‘The job with Helix is as offered, Jana,’ Ruth said softly. ‘It is also a little more complicated than advertised; but only if you would like to take the full option.’
Jana turned to Ruth. ‘I obviously drank way too much beer last night. What on earth do you have to do with any of whatever this is?’
‘Back Door is a subsidiary of the Helix Foundation,’ Gideon chipped in.
‘Helix was, in fact, founded to provide international cover for the work that my Redbacks and Back Door perform.’
Jana stared at Ruth in astonishment. ‘Your Redbacks?’
‘Yes dear, my very own wonderful, talented, highly-skilled, team of professional retrieval agents.’
‘Do you recall what happened to Ruth’s husband; to Jacob Rankin in the Philippines?’ Triko asked.
‘Um, yes of course,’ Jana frowned. ‘He and two other men were kidnapped and held for ransom for ages; for over a month.’ She glanced sadly at Ruth, ‘He didn’t survive.’
‘No, he did not. The only survivor was his friend, a Canadian expat by the name of Michael Rafferty. Do you remember who rescued him?’
‘The Canadians?’ Jana suggested.
‘Oh no; neither his government nor ours lifted a finger to get them back. There was a great deal of diplomatic chin-wagging, huffing, puffing and chest beating, all of which added up to useless hot air.’
‘But, Jacob was ex-army; SASR to be precise,’ Gideon explained. ‘He served in Vietnam, and he had a lot of friends.’
‘And we had a lot of money,’ Ruth said. ‘So I called in favours from everywhere. From the ranks of his old comrades-in-arms I found more than enough men who were willing to mount a rescue. From the army and SAS itself, we secured equipment; and, as you know, we own our own airline.
‘Despite our best efforts, however, the rescue party found them two days too late for my precious Jacob; and only an hour too late for the other man with them, Harry Auburn. But they brought Michael home safely. Although he returned to Canada, he couldn’t settle. He felt both guilty to have survived and blessed to have been rescued.’
‘So,’ Triko interjected, pouring another round of tea and coffee, ‘this charming and obscenely-wealthy Canadian comes back to Australia with a proposition for our Ms Jardine.’
‘Thank you Triko,’ Ruth said accepting the tea. ‘Michael and I joined forces and set up a Trust to finance what we thought would be the occasional need to rescue lost or stolen businesspeople, tourists, or whoever, from foreign places.
‘But you’ve no idea, Jana,’ she threw up her hands, ‘how many retrievals we organised in the first two years alone. We confine our activities to Australians, Canadians and the rare Kiwi but, even so, it seems there’s no end to the trouble that our citizens get into abroad. Some of it is self-induced. You know, travellers straying into remote areas they shouldn’t; and then getting taken hostage by Central American rebels or Peruvian paramilitary units who simply don’t want their whereabouts known.
‘Most of our clients, however, are executives, engineers, construction workers and the like, working in foreign countries - usually, but not always third world nations - who are specifically kidnapped for ransom.’
‘So you pay the ransom to collect them?’
‘Sometimes,’ Triko said. ‘Sometimes we just collect them.’
‘Like we did with you.’ Gideon twirled her finger to speed things up. ‘And, to cut a 15-year-long story short…’
‘Patience child,’ Ruth reprimanded.
For the first time in nearly an hour, Jana wanted to laugh. Child? Gideon?
‘Our only full-time employee was Jacob’s oldest friend, Eric Ryder; the man who had led the unsuccessful bid to rescue him. At first Eric simply recruited personnel for each task and sent them off to do it with whatever they needed.
‘After two years, however, the dear man started to get positively demanding, claiming he needed this, that and the other. You know, things like a permanent headquarters with all sorts of high-tech equipment like GPS, intelligence-gathering systems, monitoring and communication devices. He wanted dedicated aircraft and other vehicles, permanent overseas posts from which to supply and operate missions, full time personnel, the works.’ Ruth waved her hand back and forth as she spoke.
‘Yeah, full-timers,’ Triko waved, indicating his fellow Redbacks. ‘And his key must-have recruit was a certain Lieutenant Bryn Gideon, the first woman to come this close,’ he squeezed his thumb and index finger tightly together, ‘to selection in the Special Air Services Regiment.’
Gideon gave a ‘who’d have thought’ shrug when Jana glanced her way.
‘So before we knew it, an obscenely-wealthy Canadian and a ridiculously-rich Australian had an enterprise on their hands that required nearly as much subterfuge as Her Majesty’s Secret Service to keep it functional.’
‘By which she means, more artifice than employed by ASIO or ASIS,’ Coop grinned.
Ruth spread her arms. ‘The Redbacks came into being, Back Door was born, and the Helix Foundation was created to cover the very existence of both. Back Door became our passion, Michael’s and mine, and it is still the one part of my vast empire that allows me to sleep peacefully at night. Helix, however, soon took on a valid and valuable life of its own, of which I am also very proud.’
There was silence for a moment while everyone waited for Jana to speak, or leave.
‘Well, I for one think that’s a great story,’ Coop finally said.
‘So, I’m to do what - exactly?’ Jana finally asked.
‘Exactly what we talked about in Melbourne, Jana,’ Ruth explained. ‘Precisely what you and Lawan Terat discussed yesterday. And sometimes - if you would like to join the team - some negotiating tasks for the newly and specially-created position of Forward Scout with my Redbacks.’
‘Oh,’ Jana said. ‘Okay.’
Chapter Forty-Two
Peshawar, Pakistan
Monday 11.50 am
‘Now there’s a dopey bloody sport, if ever there was one,’ Mudge said, as he and Brody drove west on Khyber Road in slow pursuit, yet again, of Ashraf Majid and Bashir Kali. The terrorist boys had been out early this morning: out and back, out and back again, to and from their hotel as though they were connected to it with a super-long bungee cord. They’d visited friends, or fellow conspirators, or aged uncles, or the
Peshawar under 16s cricket team - the Australians had no way of finding out, without giving themselves away. All they could do was follow, take photos, follow and wait.
Kennedy had volunteered to check Ashraf’s room at the Hotel Marhaba today. He’d been in twice so far, and was probably there again right now.
‘What’s a dopey sport?’ Brody asked, taking his eyes of the road for a moment - never a good idea when driving anywhere on the subcontinent. He had to swerve to avoid the bejewelled Bedford truck that wandered into his lane, and didn’t get to see what Mudge was pointing at anyway.
‘Polo,’ Mudge replied. ‘There’s a bunch of Pakistani soldiers in that field back there, poncing around on horses and chasing a ball with a long stick.’
‘I wouldn’t ever call those guys poncy. Way back in the dim dark, real men in this neck of the woods played polo with the heads of their conquered enemies.’
‘They’re turning left again,’ Mudge said pointing. He squirmed around on the front seat so he could put his big feet up on the dashboard. ‘I knew that, Spud, about the heads, I mean. Genghis Khan’s crew used to do that too.’
‘Yeah? Well did you know,’ Brody asked, taking the turn into Tariq Road, ‘that the world’s highest polo ground is only a 12-hour drive from here? It’s up on Shandur Pass in the Hindu Kush. Every year they have this festival and a freestyle polo match that has almost no rules, Mudge. It’s an eternal grudge match apparently, between teams from Chitral and Gilgit; a bit like the Carlton and Collingwood rivalry, only way older. Anyway Shandur is at 3700 metres and so bloody hard to get to - if you’re not rich or the President, and can just fly in - that a few of the thousands of people who trek in to watch it, die just trying to get there.’ Brody slowed the car to a crawl behind a horse-drawn cart but could see that Kali’s motorbike was also held up.
‘Where do you get all this info from?’ Mudge asked.
‘Books, Mudge. You should try them sometime. Like I read somewhere that Shandur Pass is on the ridge between Heaven and the drop to Hell.’
‘Yeah? Well you better hurry the hell up and hang a right between that corner and the truck, or we’ll lose these guys down Khalid Road. Not that we can’t guess where they’re bloody going, they’ve only gone there 53 times already.’
Two minutes later Ashraf and Kali pulled the bike into a space, about 25 metres ahead, near the same chai vendor’s cart they’d already visited twice today; and hopped off to partake of yet more tea. Brody backed their car in amongst others in front of Ali-Ali’s Shoe Repair shop, also again.
The attraction with the area was obvious, if Mudge and Brody were right about the American Consulate being Atarsa Kára’s probable objective. It was two blocks up Hospital Road on the corner of Qasim. Although Brody was beginning to wonder if these blokes actually had a target, or a plot, a plan or a clue. If, in fact, they were even in Peshawar to do anything besides play computer games and drink chai.
‘I’m getting attached to this street,’ Mudge said. ‘I might look for an apartment here.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Brody said. ‘No don’t.’
Brody was over it. Ever since last Wednesday, when they’d given Bamm-Bamm, and therefore the CIA, the heads-up about the most-likely terrorist target, someone - from either their own Aussie Recon Unit or the US Special Forces detachment - had been trawling this street looking for signs of anything amiss. Their joint mission, Operation Northern Arrow, had gone on high alert, and security at the Consulate itself had been quadrupled.
And then bugger-all out of the ordinary had happened. Except that he and Mudge spent a couple of hours, twice a day, every day for nearly a week, dressed in tribal-type clothes, sitting in hot and smelly car scratching their balls and talking shit.
Sometimes they had practised new ways to tie their turbans, sometimes they got out to stretch their legs and watch Ali-Ali fix his footwear. But all that while, Ashraf and Kali simply, and innocently, played chess at a table set up beside the chai cart.
Bamm-Bamm’s boss, CIA Agent O’Leary, had passed on their intel about Ashraf and Kali and the Atarsa Kára connection to the local Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence honcho. But nothing, nada, zip and zilch had come of it. It seemed rumours about the questionable allegiance of many of the ISI officers in this region were still true. That many were in league with the Taliban and others was entirely possible; though they might claim any connection was ‘open to interpretation’.
In a historically violent, volatile and dangerous region, which shared a 2640 km border with war-torn Afghanistan, and where the Pakistani government or military itself had virtually no control, it was almost impossible to tell just who was who, let alone with whom they were playing.
The wild, mountainous tribal regions of the frontier provinces provided safe havens and training grounds for all the new enemies of the West, including any number of insurgents, militants, warlords, Taliban, al-Qaeda, Northern Jihad, Atarsa Kára, and countless variations of individuals like Ashraf and Kali.
One good and peaceful man in Peshawar who, say, spent his days mending people’s shoes, might also have a militant brother, a warlord cousin, a chai-selling father and a son in the military.
‘Um, what’s he doing?’ Mudge said from inside the car. ‘He’s never done that before. Spud! Are you paying attention?’
‘Yes, fool. He’s crossing the road that’s all…oh. Uh-oh. Shit!’ Brody who’d been standing on the road, leapt onto the bonnet of the car to get a better look at what Ashraf was up to.
Yes he was crossing the road, but he was also walking diagonally up it as he crossed. It looked as though he was trying to lose himself in a sudden surge of traffic. Kali, meanwhile, had kick-started the Yamaha and was doing a quick u-turn to follow him.
Brody dropped and slid off the bonnet. ‘Start the car and follow me,’ he said to Mudge, and then took off across the road after Ashraf. In the same moment that he noticed that Kali had done another u-turn - after only 20 metres - he also saw that Ashraf was running back and…
The American Consulate exploded onto Hospital Road.
Windows along the street shattered as an enormous whomp of air reached out and rolled cars and trucks, flung bikes and carts, and knocked people and animals clean off their feet. And the noise - the noise was like hell opening its great maw to scream bile at the world.
Brody sat down on the footpath and covered his head with his arms as debris, made of bits of building and vehicles and people began raining around him. For too many seconds he couldn’t hear a thing, then his brain was ringing, and then he heard…
‘Spud, Spud, where the bloody hell are you?’
‘Here, I’m here,’ he called out. Or he would have if his mouth hadn’t been full of dust and who knows what. He spat and tried again, by which time his best mate had not only been able to find him amidst the devastation, but could tell him apart from all the other filthy-grey people in local garb.
Mudge hauled him up from the ground. ‘We gotta go, Spud,’ he said, half-dragging him back down the road away from the destruction, away from the fires that had started, away from the screaming people. ‘Bastards went that way,’ Mudge pointed, as he dumped Brody into the passenger seat and ran back around to take the wheel. ‘They had to push the bike through all this crap, so they won’t have gotten far yet.’
Brody searched through their stake-out garbage on the floor for the canteen. He tipped half the water over his face, rinsed his mouth and spat it out a few times, and then drank the rest.
‘Shit mate, you look like that Rock-man dude from The Fantastic Four.’
‘I feel like that Rock-man dude punched me in the head, and the chest; oh fuck, and the head again.’ Brody pointed up the road. ‘Ah, there they are, turning into Saddar,’ he said as his mobile started ringing. He fought with his shirt-dress, to get to the pocket in his baggy pants, but as he yanked the phone out, it fell apart in his hand. ‘Weird,’ he said. ‘How’d that even ring?’
‘Dunno, mate,
but you’re never going to know who rang it now,’ Mudge said, pulling out to pass a taxi and moving to the left to make way for a fire truck.
‘Gimme your phone, mate; I’d better call Carter and warn them all to zip up.’
‘It’s in the glove box,’ Mudge said as he planted his foot and sped out of the bazaar area. They passed the Arbab Niaz Stadium, then turned right to follow the bike that carried Ashraf and Kali up Younos Road. ‘I reckon they might have a plane to catch, Spud. What do you think?’
‘I reckon all the planes will be grounded by now,’ Brody said and then swore at the mobile. ‘HQ must have gone into lock-down already. All I’m getting is the answering machine with the security code about Khyber Pass treks.’
‘Oh well, at least it means they know something’s up.’
Brody nearly dropped the mobile when it rang as he was about to try the backup number.
‘Yep, we are going to the airport,’ Mudge said as they slowed to make the turn. ‘No, hang on.’
‘Shut up a second, mate. I can’t hear this call,’ Brody requested. ‘What? Who’s there? Damn. Not sure, but I think that was Bamm-Bamm. Why have we stopped?’
‘Because they have,’ Mudge pointed. ‘And the little turd’s off again. What’s he doing?’
Ashraf was clambering up the embankment opposite Himalaya Trek & Tours in the Pesh airport industrial area; while Kali, still on the bike, peeled off down the service road between the Himalaya T&T building and the Far Frontier Car Rental lot.
‘Colour me lilac if I’m wrong about this,’ Mudge said, ‘but it’s very suss that these whackjobs are zeroing in on our Batcave.’
‘Shit, shit,’ Brody swore, giving up on the other numbers for the Operation Northern Arrow unit. ‘I can’t raise Carter or anyone in there.’ Bugger this. Here they were, a couple of hundred metres from their own command centre, like actually looking at the bloody place, but according to protocol they could now not even approach it. All message-banks were giving the code to stay clear of Himalaya Trek & Tours.
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