‘Hi Rawley,’ both Gideon and Jana said.
‘Prepare yourselves, guys. I reckon some very deep shit is headed your way. I’ve been conversing on the quiet with a buddy who couldn’t make the next Titan Guard op because he’s got malaria; stupid bastard. The op is going down in Sydney for our VP at your big honcho’s meeting. And, apparently, despite a leg injury - ha! - Kelman is leading the mission.
‘Now, apart from what we all know about Kelman, his leading this gig would ordinarily not be a problem; except he’s drawn up some weird-arse kind of escape route specifically for Saturday afternoon.’
‘Wouldn’t that be SOP?’ Ryder asked.
‘That’s Standard Operating Procedure,’ Coop whispered for Jana’s benefit.
‘Yeah of course,’ Rawley agreed. ‘And again, usually no problemo with a security team’s back-up plan. But, dudes, this hightailing it out of there plan is ‘the plan’ and occurs during, not after, some garden affair your PM is hosting at his house. Does that sound likely? At his house I mean?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Gideon said.
‘Well I don’t know what you guys can do about it, or even if you want to, but I’ll download the specs my buddy gave me; and then I guess it’s up to you.’
The Redbacks, their Boss and Top Dogs, Oliver, two SAS troopers and an injured CIA agent took two seconds to decide.
‘We can’t just sit here,’ Gideon said.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Sydney, Australia
Friday 4 pm
Gideon slowed the car before making the turn into Bligh Street for two reasons: one because it was sensible, the other because Jana Rossi was standing on the corner looking windswept and forlorn.
Coop wound down the passenger window and leant out. ‘Oi, how much sweetheart?’
Jana grinned at him. ‘You could not afford me, sunshine.’
‘Why are you loitering out here?’ Gideon asked, leaning across Coop to do so.
‘Dwayne had to visit the clinic again about his legs, so Triko dropped him and Mudge off. Now Triko’s on his way back from the airport with Scott; but Mudge has since asked to be picked-up, so I’m waiting for Triko to drive by and throw Scott out at me, so he, Triko, can…’
‘Whoa, we get the picture,’ Gideon said. She pushed Coop with her elbow. ‘Hop out and wait with Jana in case Scott has stuff. Meet me in the Recon Room.’
Gideon left the two of them standing on the corner. ‘How was your recce?’ Jana asked.
‘Our recce? You picking up the lingo already?’
‘Hey, me and lingo,’ Jana said, giving herself a two-handed point while she searched for any other new word, ‘we’re like fubar.’
Coop doubled over laughing. ‘Where did you hear that one?’
‘The Boss said it to Oliver over lunch.’ Jana pulled a face. ‘Obviously it means something other than what I thought.’
‘And you thought what?’
Jana shrugged. ‘In sync?’
‘Or maybe: fucked up beyond all recognition,’ Coop said, still chuckling. ‘Speaking of which, here comes Triko.’
The Redback’s seriously black 4WD, mafia-tinted windows and all, cruised to a stop near the corner, ejected a surprised American, and took off again.
‘Hi Scott,’ Jana said.
‘Ah, now I remember you,’ Scott said to her, slinging his one bag over his shoulder so he could shake hands.
‘Bloody long way to come for a date if you don’t even recall her face, mate,’ Coop said.
Jana threw her head around in mock irritation. ‘Scott, this is Coop, or Shane. Coop this is Scott Dreher. Now do your manly bonding thing so we can go back inside, out of the cold.’
Coop and Scott shook hands, called each other mate, buddy and dude and then fell in behind Jana as she led the way, somewhat like a forward scout, down the street and around the corner to Back Door’s triple security entrance. Jana had already been scanned, voiced, imaged and fitted with everything needed to gain entry whenever she liked. Scott, however, needed their help to get in.
‘Is this all you brought with you?’ Coop asked. He handed Scott’s bag back to him as they crossed the lobby.
‘No. The other guy, Triko, said he’d make his brother carry my other stuff in from the car.’
Coop kept an eye on Scott as they rode the lift to fourth floor. He didn’t appear to be checking Jana out, but the guy had come a bloody long way for ‘a story’. He didn’t look much like the author mugshot on his book either. The Boss had dispatched someone to get a few copies of Drugs R US.A the moment Scott and the FBI woman had announced he was on his way. The definitely touched-up, book-jacketed Scott Dreher looked like a 30-something college professor: smiling, blue-eyed, clean-shaven, okay looking. The bloke in the lift looked like a 40-something semi-made bed; tired but still smiling, in need of a shave and - Coop glanced at Jana who was facing Scott - yeah, obviously still okay-looking.
‘You look rooted, mate,’ Coop said.
Scott grinned at him. ‘If that means tired beyond all rational thought and physical co-ordination then you’re very observant.’
The lift opened on the fourth floor and Coop pointed to the right. ‘What is this place?’ Scott asked. ‘Triko said you guys, all of you, live here; but this joint has more and way better security than the FBI office I was just in, back in Dallas.’
‘I don’t live here,’ Jana said. ‘I am staying here at the moment, but I live in Melbourne.’
Coop wondered why Jana would need to tell the guy that. He might need to pass that on to Bryn. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is Back Door HQ. Back Door is a retrieval agency. We, the Redbacks, are Back Door’s team of highly-trained, incredibly professional retrieval agents who…’
‘Retrieve things.’ It was Gideon, coming up behind them. ‘But not nearly quick enough today, Coop.’
Bradley’s Head, Sydney
Friday 4.30 pm
Dargo settled back into the convenient natural rock cocoon he’d bivouacked in for the last two days. Half way up the steep bushy west-facing slope, and about 30 feet above the shoreline, the hole was perfect in every way for the job he was here to do. It was not only an ideal hiding place but, when the time came tomorrow, it would also serve as his firing position.
Its best features were its depth and shape, almost as if it had been specially sculpted for his large frame. The cocoon was deep enough for him to kneel in comfortably and take his shot; its rocky lip formed a natural rest for his rifle; and its location provided a true and direct line of sight to his target area.
The headland where he camped jutted out from the north shore of Sydney Harbour. He’d calculated the distance, from Bradley’s Head across the water to the lawn at Kirribilli, as a smidgeon under 2.5 km. From here even he had to admit that, despite his normal aversion to open water, his view of the famous Bridge, the bizarrely-elegant Opera House and the wide and glittering harbour itself, was quite spectacular.
More telling however was the fact that Dargo found his current location somewhat amusing, for he was waiting in a hole in Bradley’s Head to put a hole in someone else’s.
Dargo had researched the security arrangements for the big SETSA summit, which had begun today with the welcoming ceremonies. Most of it was public knowledge, which made things easy. The Australian authorities, generally speaking, showed a certain amount of sense in that regard; perhaps recognising that if their citizens were well-informed they were less likely to accidentally cause trouble. Protestors, on the other hand, usually gathered in numbers that made them easy to spot, and their targets were also usually obvious or easy to pick.
It was the lone troublemakers, like Dargo, who were impossible to predict; impossible in their likelihood, their potential targets, their modus operandi - the list went on. These days it also included whether their intention was to get out alive or not. It was therefore impossible to guard against someone like Dargo, without locking down an entire city, as well as every route to and from every venue that every
delegate was even remotely likely to be seen. Impossible.
Here in Sydney, it meant certain streets would be closed for SETSA, or traffic limited to one direction; something Sydneysiders were no longer finding a novelty. Some areas were off-limits, while others carried extra and even ridiculous security measures.
On Sydney Harbour there were several more than usual no-go zones for civilian vessels. The exclusion zone for any watercraft other than the New South Wales Water Police or the Australian Navy, had been increased to no closer than one kilometre from many key sites - like the one Dargo had in his sights right now.
He smiled. Yes, it was impossible to allow for the unforeseen event. And it only required one incident to throw everything else out of whack and into chaos. Dargo was convinced the superior accuracy of the McMillan Brothers’ outstanding TAC-50 sniper rifle would forever remind the Australians to look further than the logical, sensible and practical. It also meant he would break that Canadian sniper’s record for the longest-ever kill shot. Assuming he decided to kill and not just maim. He wouldn’t be able to claim the record of course, but then his was the only record book that mattered anyway.
Chapter Fifty-Five
St Leonards Park, Sydney, Australia
Saturday 1 pm
Gideon was crouched at the back of the high commentary tower next to the grandstand of the North Sydney Oval. From here she could look out over the green tin roofs, across the oval and up and down the roads around the park. She tried not to be distracted by the rugby league match in progress. It was only a practice match after all, an Under 18s team, and not starring her team, Parramatta. But none of those factors were why she was trying to look inconspicuous.
The intel from Rawley the day before, suggested that something untoward was to happen here - in the precinct of the oval, St Leonards Park and the North Sydney Bowls club - at 1.30 pm today. The emergency evac route, which Kelman and the Titan Guards had planned for the Vice President, brought them here; which was nowhere sensible.
Even if a reason was manufactured to get the VP out of anywhere fast, there was still no reason on the planet for Arlen Conte to be whisked from the SETSA summit garden party at Kirribilli House and taken to North Sydney. Even if the man was a lawn bowls addict, this place or even direction made no sense.
So the Boss had called Mick Fleming who’d arrived an hour later with the Foreign Minister to discuss the situation; whatever it was. Danby then placed a call to the head of SETSA security and to the New South Wales Police Commissioner, who also came to visit. Then everyone - including the Prime Minister on a vid-phone conference call - had got together in the Back Door Recon Room, to talk some more and lay down a plan of action.
Several of the powers-that-be had serious doubts that anything would happen, especially something so seemingly half-baked, and more than a little ridiculous. The Prime Minister sensibly asked what excuse the Titan Guards would have afterwards for taking this route at all, should something, in fact, happen to the Vice President on their watch.
Fleming suggested maybe it was supposed to look like the Titan Guards had been forced to go that way, but nonetheless they managed to ‘save’ the Vice President from something.
Brody suggested, if that was the case, then maybe they’d already done that once before - in New Delhi when they’d ‘saved’ Prime Minister Harvey last year.
Everybody asked what the hell would be the point of that?
Whatever the point, and whatever the reason for Rawley’s ‘escape route’, the Redbacks had their own plan, and a back-up plan, and a strategy to deal with either.
The clincher, as far as the Back Door crew were concerned, came when Oliver did the Oliver-thing with the two pirated Global WarTek disks that Scott Dreher brought with him from Dallas.
When Scott’s Cairo disk and Laura’s Carthage disk met Kennedy’s Peshawar disk and they were all laced with Oliver’s high-tech keyboard talk, everything meshed and reconfigured into one working Rashmana-Atlantes program.
Mudge’s low-tech translation of all this, was that the games all had group sex and a cracker of an orgasm.
Gideon had said ‘whatever’, Ryder had said ‘shut up Mudge’, and Jana had said ‘oh’ and pointed. The Recon Room screen was displaying an entire world Rashmana map - where the real world was covered in red and blue spots and dots - and dates.
The two attacks in Dallas were the first that Scott picked up, naturally; but then they all realised there were other reds to come in San Francisco, Washington and Seattle.
There was a blue dot on Canberra and a red spot on Sydney. As the blue carried the date that the Australian Attorney-General had been assassinated in the surf at Bondi, the consensus in the Recon Room was that a blue dot was person not place-specific. The red spot on Sydney didn’t need a date, although it had Saturday’s, because it actually said ‘SETSA’.
So, here was Gideon in her lookout tower, watching another person lying motionless on the north-east grandstand roof oblivious to the fact that he was being watched at all.
Coop and Gideon had first spotted him on their recce yesterday, and taken photos of him. Then they called in Marco and Evan to take over the surveillance and watch the guy until he chose to do something with his RPG launcher other than use it as a pillow.
Gideon’s photos revealed that the man on the roof was Bashir Kali, leader of Groh Sitaarah, member of Atarsa Kára, and perpetrator of a great many bombing atrocities, most recently the carnage in Peshawar.
Brody, Mudge and Kennedy naturally wanted to deal with him immediately. Under normal circumstances that would have been the normal thing to do. But they still had no idea what was going down; and if they moved too soon they’d never find out.
So rather than take Bashir Kali into custody or throw him off The Gap, the Back Door players were shuffled around the board. Brody and Triko became Gideon’s back-up, and Coop was in charge of the rest of the Redbacks at ground zero.
Kirribilli House, Sydney
Saturday 1 pm
Final Redback assignments, including whether or not their Forward Scout could show her face at the Prime Minister’s Sydney residence, had not been given until it was verified that Nick Kelman was not in command of the Titan Guard unit assigned as the Over-Protection detail for the American Vice President.
Kelman may well be in charge of whatever was going on, but he was not advertising the fact.
While Coop took up his point position near Vice President Conte, and Mudge took charge of his team, the Director of the Helix Foundation and her newest associate were doing the VIP schmooze. Ruth was never one to waste an opportunity to win the hearts, minds and economies of the highest-profile VIPs as she called them. She was mentoring Jana in the gentle art of guilt-tripping powerful men into doing her bidding; or, preferably, allowing her foundation into their countries so she could do things her way. With their full support and economic encouragement of course.
‘We couldn’t have asked for better weather,’ Prime Minster Harvey was saying to the men in his immediate circle. The Presidents of South Africa and Indonesia, the Indian Prime Minister and a delegate from Egypt all seemed to agree.
‘How could they not,’ Ruth muttered.
Jana waved her arm at the view, down across the sweeping lawn and out over the deep blue water. ‘The harbour does look amazing from here.’
‘Yes, and isn’t it nice that we get to visit a building and garden we taxpayers own,’ Ruth said.
‘How many delegates are here?’
Ruth shrugged. ‘Thirty or more I believe. Let’s go hassle the American.’
Coop, however, indicated with a subtle ‘bugger-off ‘ that they should not approach Mr Conte. Coop did not want them anywhere near where any trouble was likely to be, or start or finish. Like Gideon, he hadn’t wanted either of them anywhere in the potential firing line because it would distract him from his mission. He knew that Ruth and Jana’s safety would ultimately be more important, even though he was there to look out for
the second most powerful man in the known universe. Ha! The man with the gun or the bomb was always going to be that man.
Coop, listening in disbelief to what Aaron Danby was saying to the Vice President, thought he should probably care about his own Foreign Minister being in the thick of things too. Then he realised he couldn’t keep everyone away from the VP or the man might feel slighted.
‘Not to put too fine a point on it, Arlen,’ Danby said, ‘but while my big cheese is an arrogant berk, he is at least self aware. Your impediment, on the other hand - ow! What the hell?’ Danby bent down to rub his left shin. It felt like he’d just been bitten by a very large bull ant.
‘Good God man, are you okay?’ Conte asked. There was blood all over Danby’s hand.
‘Shit, um, you, what’s-yer-name? Cooper!’ Danby called, and then felt the searing pain in his leg. He collapsed on the grass. ‘Cooper,’ he yelled, ‘get Mick.’
Coop, who had turned at the first mention of his name, saw in that one instant: the blood, the Minister hitting the deck, Conte diving to join him, Secret Service guys diving on Conte, and then…
‘Ow, fuck,’ something flicked off the wall beside him and hit him in the cheek.
‘Redbacks we have a sniper,’ Coop said, tucking and rolling across the six feet of grass to the Secret Service heap. ‘Stay down,’ he told the agents. ‘The shots are coming in from the harbour, if we stay down we’re out of any sight-line.’
The lead Secret Service agent looked as though he was going to do something other than that.
‘Oi!’ Coop got right in his face. ‘Stay the fuck down, dipshit.’
‘Coop?’ It was Gideon’s voice in his head.
‘Game on, Bryn,’ he said, moving across to the Foreign Minister. ‘Mr Danby? You okay?’
Mick Fleming had also heard Danby call out, and had dashed across from the corner of the house, staying low. He reached him in the same moment.
‘Some fucker just shot me, Mick.’
Mick grinned at his friend, then at Coop. ‘He’s fine, go do your thing.’
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