ARC: Peacemaker (26 page)

“Will this Papa Brise come?”

“I don’t know. Yes, I expect. Having Kadee Matari in his debt will be too tempting not to. They’re locked in a turf war, and I think the Korax are agitating, making things worse.”

“Ginny, maybe you should contact your boss.”

“Bull?” I looked at her with surprise. “Why?”

“Hamish is AWOL and you’re teaming up with some dead set criminals to walk into a questionable situation. What if you’re outnumbered? What if your allies decide to turn on you? How can you trust a man from Mystere called
Papa Brise
?”

“I can trust him as much as the next person.” Or as little
–
which was more my mantra. Caro shook her head. “There’re too many unknowns. I don’t like it.”

“I appreciate the concern but there must have been some unknowns in Burundi, Caro. It didn’t stop you.”

“I had Hamish,” she said. “You don’t.”

There was a soft click and we both turned towards the door.

Hamish was standing there. “That would be incorrect.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“H-Haim? How did you f-find this place?” Caro stuttered.

“Followed the Ranger.”

“How did you get in?” I asked.

“Now that would be telling,” he said but he didn’t look at me when he spoke.

He was dressed all in a dusty grey, the kind of colour that made you blend into a crowd. The long pack on his shoulders was strained into an odd shape that made me wonder what he had in there.

I glanced at the time on my phone. Totes should have gone home and the stables would be unmanned. “I need to go.”

Caro got up and collected the cans. “Look after her, Hamish.”

He kept his gaze on her. “You might want a good alibi for the next few hours.”

She nodded and gave me a hug. Twice in one day was some kind of record for us.“If in doubt, bail! Hamish will get you out.”

“I’ll be fine.”

She slapped Hamish on the shoulder as she left. “Wipe the keypad when you leave.”

That left us alone and awkward.

I picked up my own pack and slung it around my shoulders. “Thought you didn’t like open spaces,” I said. “And horses.”

He went to the door, ran a keycard scrubber through it then wiped it down meticulously with a swab he pulled from a flat pack in one of his pockets.

“I don’t,” he said. “Let’s go.”

We walked to the Park Southern tunnel entrance. At least, I walked. Hamish was somewhere close by but I couldn’t see him in the dinner time crowds.

When I reached the stairs down to the tunnel, I touched my security card to the gate. It slid open on silent rollers.

Hamish appeared from the shadows of the stairwell and strolled on through. I call it a stroll but really it he was light on his feet and cautious.

After spending time with the Marshall, I’d become accustomed to a confident stride that reminded me of a ship cutting through waves. Hamish was more a cat on a hot tin roof.

He peered ahead into the tunnel and turned to me. “Now?”

“We wait for Papa Brise.”

“Who?”

“When I thought you weren’t coming, I called in some help.”

He nodded. “You wait. I’ll look around.”

“No… but… you won’t be able to…”

He’d already gone, sprinting off.

I sighed and threw my hands in the air. What had Caro done fixing me up with this guy? I checked my watch. The Wet Moon would rise in little over an hour and I had no idea where in the park this exchange would occur. Dad had felt that Los Tribos was a focal spot, so I planned to go to the top of the butte and watch in that direction for changes in the skyline.

“Ranger?”

I glanced up from my troubled musings and saw Papa Brise, and the three guys that Sixkiller and I had encountered in Mystere with him. They were all wearing long coats despite the warm evening, and glowering expressions.

“Do you… Have you…?” I faltered on asking outright if they were armed.

He nodded at his men and they opened their coats. Each one had a semi auto and belts of ammo strapped around their torsos.

I swallowed nervously. The sight of the hardware made my own pistols and knife feel kinda ridiculous. Had I lost my mind bringing these men here? “Did you travel on the bus like that?”

Papa Brise bared his teeth. “Express delivery. Like a pizza.”

“We have to get out in the park and get a vantage point so we can spot the exchange point.”

Papa Brise rolled his eyes. He was already sweating heavily. “How we gonna do that?”

“Horseback,” I said.

“Fo’ real?”

I nodded.

“You better deliver tonight, Ranger. Or I slit your fuckeen insides open for making me get on the back of a fuckeen live animal.”

“They’re well trained,” I said. “They’ll follow my horse’s lead.”

He licked his lips and gave me a lizard-like stare.

“There’s one other thing,” I said. “Someone else’s helping me… us. He’s dressed in grey, medium height, medium colouring and he’ll appear from nowhere. Don’t, you know, shoot him.”

“I’m thinking you’re going to be the only one I’m going to be fuckeen shooting tonight. But that’s
after
I gut you.”

I squared my shoulders against the ugly threat. “Come on then. This way.”

Every step we took along the tunnel and up the stairs into the stables entrance, I regretted what I’d done. I should have called the police. I should have called Bull. The Marshall wasn’t my responsibility. Someone else could have dealt with it.

But no one else would have believed me.

No one.

I used my security card on the door and signaled for Papa Brise to wait while I ran down the corridors and checked that the offices were empty. In Tote’s hidey hole a thousand lights were blinking, but, aside from the row of glassy-eyed dolls, I was the only one there to see them.

“Come in,” I called back to my posse. “Pull the door shut. It’ll lock behind you.”

They made a strange procession along the corridors of the stables.

I planted them by the Interchange door while I saddled up five horses. It took some time, made worse by my sweat-slick fingers.

When I was done, I led Benny out first and stood her in front of the door. The others would follow her lead once we were outside, so I brought them up behind her.

The whole mounting and quick explanation of how to sit and hold reins went more smoothly than I expected. Papa Brise had clearly ridden before despite his surliness, and his three men weren’t the kind to get nervous about much.

I had them assembled in front of the door ready to mount when Hamish did his usual appearing from nowhere trick.

Papa Brise and his men all reached inside their coats and I jumped in front of Hamish, hands spread.

“Whoa. Steady. He’s with us.”

Their hands dropped away but their expressions remained suspicious.

I turned to Hamish and scooped up a set of reins to hand to him. The mare I’d kept for him was the most placid of the stable horses.

He gave me a strange look then took them from me and vaulted into the saddle.

“But I thought you…”

He silenced me with a look that suggested that he’d ridden before but something bad had happened along the way. His posture, hands and feet were all right but his face was whiter than the fluorescent lights above us.

Sombre Vol whinnied to us, unhappy about being left behind. On impulse, I grabbed a bridle and brought him from the stall. The Marshall might need him.

He pranced around disturbing the others as I mounted Benny. Sooner we were in the open the better! I used my phone code to open the Interchange doors and led the not-even-a-little-bit-merry band into the park.

We grouped around the water trough, giving our eyes time to adapt to the moonlit darkness, setting up our head lamps.

“We’re going to ride out past the windmill, up to the butte and watch the skyline from there. I’m guessing the exchange will be an aerial drop and we’ll have the best view from there. Once we starting riding up, it’s best to stay in single file. I’m going to set the GPS on each mount to the same co-ordinates. They’ll know where to go, so you just have to stay on board. Keep quiet on the ride. OK?”

If grunts were affirmations, I got four of them. Hamish said nothing.

I used my phone to set each horse’s destination. We struck out then, bunched together for the first part of the journey across the plain.

Exhilaration beat my anxiety down for a bit. The air was rich with the scent of the Old Man Banksia that grew along the Park walls and cooling desert sand. And the feel of the light breeze on my skin and Benny’s familiar gait beneath me was a blessed meditation.

Sombre Vol nudged against her from time to time, upsetting my balance, but not my brief return of equilibrium. His GPS chip had been removed in readiness to send him back to the trader, so I had to juggle his reins and keep him alongside me.

The trail ride up the side of the butte in the near dark was slow, and I heard Papa Brise swearing under his breath. I glanced back constantly, counting the silhouettes and wondering how Hamish was faring at the back.

My phone started buzzing before we reached the top but I couldn’t risk taking it out to read it until we reached the summit.

Benny knew this path well and she paced herself on the steeper sections, giving a little whinny of satisfaction when we reached the top.

Papa Brise and his men dismounted around me and we stood on the plateau gazing up at the night sky. I took their silent, solemn gazes to mean they were impressed and a little awed. That’s how I felt looking out at the stars right now; humbled but scared and angry that it was being violated.

That anger came from my core, fueled not just by my beliefs but by my dad’s and the fact that it had somehow cost him his life.

My phone beeped a reminder that I had to check my messages. It was from Caro.

Bull has search parties out for you. Something’s going on. Ditch your phone. Cops been here too.

“Crap!”

Hamish appeared next to me. “Cold feet, Ranger?”

“The Park agency is tracking my phone. And the cops are out looking to arrest me for murder,” I whispered.

“Popular,” he said.

“That’s one word for it.”

“Why did you jump in front of me back there in stables?” he asked.

“They were twitchy,” I said, inkling my head towards the others. “Didn’t want them… you know… shooting you.”

He nodded slowly. “Don’t ever do that again, you understand. I can take care of myself.”

“You’re welcome. Message received.”

I turned my back on him and spoke to Papa Brise and his men. “I’m going to have to lose my phone which means I won’t be able to set destinations for the horses. You’re actually going to have to ride them.”

The four of them glared back at me like they might be happy to end all my problems right now with a bullet or ten, so I tried for reassurance. “Look, they’ll follow my horse out of habit, so just stay calm and it will be fine.”

Papa Brise spat on the ground. “Fuckeen women. Always changing the fuckeen story.”

I cleared my throat and moved away a few steps before I said something I regretted.

“That went well,” said Hamish in my ear again.

“Look, all I care about is getting the Marshall back.”

“Sounds… intimate?” he said.

I threw him a hostile stare. “No. But I owe him. And… he means well.”

To my astonishment, Hamish chuckled. “Well I wouldn’t be wishing for that as a eulogy on my tombstone.”

“I don’t intend it to be on his either.”

“Well,” said Hamish, his head tilted upward. “It looks like you’re up.”

I saw the flash as well, like a small burst of lightning high in the north-west sky. I got a compass bearing and ran it through the Park map on my phone. It was on a direct trajectory towards Los Tribos.

Dad was right.

A gust of wind brushed my face and Aquila fluttered past to land on the ground between Hamish and me. Her grey and brown colouring rendered her almost a shadow in the moonlit dark but her eyes had an eerie buttery glow.

“What are you staring at?” said Hamish.

I lifted my gaze from her and raised my voice. “That’s it fellahs… over to the west. Time to ride.”

I reset the horses’ GPS for the last time.

“Once we’re on the flat, we’ll have to move at speed. Try and relax in the saddle,” I added.

“Fuck you,” said Papa Brise.

I took that as an affirmative, threw my new phone over the edge and sent Benny down the slope.

By the time Hamish, the last in line, hit flat ground, my stomach had begun to churn.

“Put out your lights and stay close,” I said, urging Benny into a canter.

Our small posse rode into the west, the horses’ hooves silenced by soft sand and the whip of the breeze. On instinct, the animals stayed bunched together under the moonlight and I kept Sombre Vol to my right, away from the others. He pranced and pulled, anxious to be free of me but I held tight to the reins and spoke soothingly to him.

As we rode closer towards Los Tribos, the darkness and the dip of the dunes was our cover. The sliver of lighting we’d seen high in the sky had disseminated into a large gyro-drone with hooded landing lights.

We reined in and watched from a distance. The fingers of Los Tribos stood silhouetted against the lights, as if they were poised to cup the aircraft.

“Looks like army shit,” said Papa Brise.

“Not army,” said Hamish squinting through a night scope he’d produced from his bulky kit.

“What would you fuckeen know? And who the fuck are you anyway?”

Hamish didn’t reply, but he dismounted. “No markings on it, Ranger. We should walk the rest of the way.”

He was right. Any closer and we risked being caught in the gyro’s landing lights.