ARC: Peacemaker (25 page)

“Umm… just looking for… There!”

A figure jumped a fence in front of us and ran in the opposite direction to us.

He jumped in and pressed the ignition. The car eased quietly along the lane towards the intersecting street. Seconds later a motor bike buzzed past and Hamish accelerated with practiced ease.

I remembered how he drove back to the Park Sector from the Million Mile – competent and fast. We hadn’t spoken a word on the way home that night, and I found it hard to think of anything to say now.

He kept checking the rectangular unit attached to his steering wheel as we followed the bike at a distance.

“You put a tracker on his bike?”

He didn’t answer. I realized then that Hamish wasn’t one for restating the obvious, so I settled back and kept my mouth shut.

The bike’s route took us directly back to the city and eventually onto the Ringway. I’d expected to be heading south towards Mystere or northeast to DreamWorks, not back into the heart of the Southern Sector business district.

We passed by Cloisters and the Parks Southern offices, heading further east to the light industrial area. Finally Hamish pulled into a loading zone in front of a lighting warehouse.

“Here?” I asked.

He shook his head and nodded across the road. “According to this he went right in there,” he said pointing to the security roller door in front of the undercroft parking.

“Roscoes?” I got out my phone and searched on them, but Hamish was ahead of me.

“Rigging company,” he said, head bent over his tracking unit.

I glanced at him. “Does that thing make coffee too?”

“New generation multipurpose defense mobile.” He flicked his fingers across the screen a few more times.

While I was still waiting for my phone to download data he gave a low whistle at what he’d read from his screen.

“What?”

“They contract exclusively to ComTel.”

A cold feeling crept through my body. “But ComTel’s our
national
communications company.”

“Criminals come in all shades, Ranger, from all kinds of backgrounds.”

“How… Where… The Marshall… How will we…?” I couldn’t organize my thoughts to speak properly.

“I’d say you’ve got problems.”

“I need to speak to Caro.”

He nodded. “Agreed.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

While Caro and I shared custard pie and strong coffee at her apartment, Hamish poured over his magic box.

Caro only had two chairs, so he sat on the floor, legs crossed, back ramrod straight against the wall. I offered him food but he didn’t seem to hear me.

“Hamish doesn’t eat when he’s thinking,” said Caro. “Wish I was the same.”

Seemingly unaware of our conversation, he stretched his neck from side to side and sprang to his feet. “I’ll be back in a while.”

“Hamish?” said Caro.

But he looked at me. “Wash that grass off and get some sleep. I’ll be back to get you from your place.”

“Pardon?”

“You want your guy out? Then I have to do some reconnaissance. I’ll be back soon after dark.”

“How do you know where t–”

But he’d gone.

Caro sighed and cut us both another piece of pie. “Don’t ask me to explain him. I can’t. But I don’t know I would have died in Burundi if he hadn’t pulled me out of the crossfire.”

“What happened?”

“You can imagine it. Lines change all the time in conflict. What’s safe in the morning might be overtaken by your enemy in the afternoon. I made a mistake. He was in the area on ‘other business’ and caught my shortwave call. Next thing I was being ridden out of the warzone on a two stroke with no brakes and a flat tyre.” She gave a little shudder. “Never been so terrified before, but Hamish
–
”

“He makes me nervous.”

“When Hamish takes on a job he finishes it. He’s obsessive about closure.”

“And Nate?”

“Finding Nate’s his current job. Maybe you better go home and get some rest like he said.”

I yawned. Last night’s lack of sleep had caught up like a wall of falling bricks. “Can’t think.”

Caro put out a hand and pulled me up. “I’ll walk you to the rank.”

I ran the cabby’s name and number on my SafeTravel app before I got in. He checked out, so I waved Caro goodbye, jumped into the back seat and closed my eyes.

He woke me to pay the fare, and I let him beep my One Card. The lift seemed to take a lifetime to get to my floor and I was grateful that Heart wasn’t there when I got to my apartment.

I fell on the bed fully clothed and went out to it like I’d been drugged. At some stage I woke and saw Aquila on the bed end. But then it may have just been a dream.

Full clarity and a dry mouth came some time later. I rolled over and opened my eyes when the air conditioner made a
thunk
.

Hamish, not Aquila was standing at the foot of my bed with the air con’s remote in his hand. He wore black fatigues with deep pockets and a dark long sleeved jersey.

“Crap!” I said plucking at the sheet, even though I was dressed. “What are you doing in here?”

“Knocked a few times but you didn’t hear. Had to let myself in.”

I got up and grabbed my boots, walking past him into the living room. “What did you find?”

“Marshall’s not there. But the guy we followed told me this.”

I swallowed. “He t-told you? Just like that?”

“He knew it was the right thing to do,” he said with a disturbing smile.

This man had a serious personality disorder. “A-and?”

“He didn’t know where the Marshall was. Only that he’d was being shifted out when the others arrived.”

“Others arrived? What’s that mean? And he didn’t happen to say when that was, did he?”

That smile deepened as he reached into one of his pockets, pulled out his next-gen coffee maker/defense mobile and showed me a message on the screen. “Wrote it down to be sure.”

I read the two words on the page.

Wet moon
.

Some things clunked into place. The guy who’d been murdered in the park had said that. The Korax must be gaining illegal entry into the country through the park somehow, and I they thought that I’d heard that. I grabbed my tablet from the coffee table and checked the lunar calendar online.

“The wet moon is tonight. We have to get to the park,” I said.

His eyes narrowed. “What? Out in the open?”

I stared at him. “You’re agoraphobic?”

“I deal in cities,” he said. “Not open spaces.”

I wanted to laugh but thought better of it. “Can you ride a horse?”

“If I have to,” he said.

“Great. I’ll explain my theory on the way.”

“Uhuh. No spaces.”

“I… Oh…”

He put the next-gen away and retreated to the door. “’Later.”

“But Hamish
–
”

The door shut before I could finish. I stood there confused and overwhelmed by apprehension. I was now on my own.

I could call Bull but I had no idea what he would do with the information, or if he’d even act upon it. Then there was Detective Chance who was less likely to give credence to what I had to say, and more inclined to use it as an excuse to me lock me up.

That left me with Caro and maybe Heart, neither of whom I was prepared to put in a risky situation.

The only solution I could think of had its own risks. But it was better than going after Sixkiller alone.

I did a contact search on my new phone and put a call through to Juno’s Cantina in Mystere. “I need to get a message to Papa Brise. Ask him to call Virgin Jackson on this number right away.”

The guy on the other end sounded doubtful but he took the message.

I went to the kitchen and opened a sachet of red beans and mixed some eggs. With a decent dollop of chili, I turned it into a spicy omelet. A packet of crisp-breads and a bottle of water completed the quick meal, while I sat to wait and figure shit out.

I was seeing a story that went like this. The Korax
–
a fringe gang
–
had found an illegal way into the country through the park. If Sixkiller was right, then once here they were using violent acts to distract from their real agenda – whatever that was. At a guess they seemed to be making a move on the black market here. They didn’t want Sixkiller or I interfering in that plan, and short of making me vanish, they’d taken him.

If the wet moon was the time they’d set for their next drop of people, then it was likely they might ship him and Kadee Matari out on that exchange.
If they hadn’t killed them already.
Sixkiller had already put a bullet in one of their own. What use would they have for keeping him alive?

I didn’t have an answer to that but I refused to believe that the Marshall was dead. I needed him to tell me more about Dad.

And I owed him.

My theory didn’t allow any room for the whole Mythos and disincarnate side of the puzzle
–
other than Sixkiller’s earlier observation that the lunar phase affected their opportunity to be here. But I couldn’t go any further with that idea right now. It was simpler to deal in concretes.

My phone buzzed, so I put down the empty omelet plate and answered.

“Caro?”

“I just picked up something on the police band. They’ve matched your DNA on the park guy’s body. They’re sending a car to pick you up.”

“This is such bullshit. Of course my DNA’s on him. I touched him.”

“I don’t know the details but you need to lay low. Is Hamish with you?”

“No.”

“That’s strange. Thought he’d taken a liking to you.”

I raised my eyebrows, even though she couldn’t see them. “That’s terrifying.”

“What do you want to do?”

I flipped through my options and made my decision quickly. “I can’t let them take me into custody tonight. It might be my only chance to find Nate.”

“How much time do you need?”

“A few hours.”

“Meet me at Horners. I know a place you can wait.”

Of course she did.

“And Ginny, hurry. There was a unit in your area when they called it through.”

I ran to my bedroom, got my full kit bag with flashlight, knife and spare pistol and pulled the journal dot from inside the air-con vent in case the police decided to break in here and search.

A quick look outside my door revealed an empty corridor. Park security had obviously been pulled off me. I was surprised Bull hadn’t called, demanding to know my whereabouts. Something else might have caught his attention.

I took the stairs through the laundry exit and walked two blocks south to a different taxi rank. Wait time in the queue look good but I changed my mind, worrying they had an alert out on my One Card.

Where Caro wanted to meet me was only five blocks away, so I decided to take my chance and walk. Head down, I kept to the busier streets, trying to look as preoccupied and distant as everyone else going about their business.

A set of beat cops surprised me near the corner of Parkway and Palomino Street. I ducked into a chocolatier, and stood trembling in front of the candied fruit, until they passed.

Caro was waiting for me in a back booth at Hoofs and Horners. She got up straight away and gestured for me to follow her out the back. We left the bar through the kitchen restrooms, climbed some fire stairs and walked across a corrugated landing into an adjoining building. She pressed a sequence on the coded lock of a filthy wooden door and let us into a dark corridor and another landing. This building stank of fried onions.

Some more stairs and she opened a door in a dark corner near an industrial strength air conditioning unit.

Inside the windowless room there were some plastic chairs, a single portable bed, a sink and a cupboard. The wall above the sink was speckled with mold and the room temperature was set at freezing.

I raised my eyebrows.

“Welcome to the glamour of a safe house.”

“You still surprise me,” I said.

“Sometimes I have to give sources a place to stay while I’m interviewing them. Being next to the air con unit makes it hard to eavesdrop on.”

I glanced around looking for signs of an inhabitant. “Hamish?”

“Hamish is somewhere else.”

“You have more than one of these?”

She shrugged and ran her fingers through her blonde curls. Even in jeans, street boots and a canvas jacket she looked sweet as angel pie.

“Best you don’t know,” she said.

On impulse I hugged her.

She peered up at me from the embrace. Her head only reached my shoulder. “Ginny?”

“I’m OK. Just thanking you properly.”

She grinned. “Noted.”

My phone buzzed and I answered it.

“What you fuckeen want, Ranger?”

“Papa Brise?”

Caro’s eyes widened and I walked away from her to the sink.

“I have the answers to some of your questions but I need your help tonight,” I said.

“Why should I fuckeen help you?”

“I know where Kadee Matari is. You help me get her and the Marshall and she’s all yours. You can use the leverage however you want.”

He breathed heavily into the receiver, digesting what I said. “The Crow and Circle have the Stoned Witch? I hear the fuckeen rumours she’s been taken but–”

“Yes. And I think they’re shifting her out of the country tonight while they’re bringing more people in. You’ve got a chance to get her and maybe take back control of your place. “

He only paused for a breath or two. “What do you want?”

“You and a few of your people.”

“Where?”

“The tunnel under 1029 Park Way entrance just after on dark. I’ll meet you there.”

“Parkway? In the city?”

“You know how to get here?” I asked.

“Don’t get fuckeen cute, Ranger. It doesn’t work for you.”

He clicked off.

I turned to Caro and she stabbed her finger at the chairs.

“Take a load off. It’s going to be another long night,” she said.

We perched on the plastic chairs and she pulled two bottles of ginger ale and some flat bread from her backpack. The sugary drink settled my nerves and the bread softened the knot in my stomach.

“So you really think ComTel is trafficking people in through the park?”

I shrugged. “Maybe not trafficking, maybe just allowing illegals in. ComTel operates the E-M canopy above the park that prevents anyone gaining aerial entry.”

“But if ComTel controls it…”

“ParkSouthern’s technical department monitors it, but if their guardian programme was somehow compromised then ComTel, or someone in ComTel could do as they please. It would just mean paying of someone in Air Traffic Control to turn a blind eye.”

“Seems risky?”

“Maybe. But since the asylum seekers war, the government’s poured so much money into border security along the coast it’s impossible to land illegally that way.”I thought about Totes’ complaint about anomalies in his system. “Anyway, I guess I’ll find out tonight.”