Crystal Coffin (37 page)

‘My employers are most keen for your next delivery,' Moltoni said. ‘They wish to ensure that you're happy with our arrangements.'

Fletcher nodded. ‘Okay,' he said, keen to secure his first really big clients. ‘But I want to talk to them myself.'

‘No problem,' the pilot said. ‘Come on up and I'll get 'em on the wire.'

Inside the boathouse, Locklin heard muffled splashing and scratching under the floorboards and hurried to open the trapdoors.

‘Nikki!' he whispered into the hole. He put down the rifles and lay flat on the floor, reaching in further than the ache in his sore shoulder wanted him to while he searched his hand around in the freezing water.

‘I've got you,' he said, feeling hair as she splashed towards the light. She had to duck under a beam to get back to the trapdoor and as she surfaced, he reached deeper to hook her up by her armpits.

‘Quiet,' he warned as she came up shivering. ‘They're right outside.'

She seemed colder than the water and he pulled her wet shirt off and took off his dry one to wrap around her. She stood shivering, her eyes fixed on the partially healed bullet wound in his shoulder while he helped her put it on.

‘It goes with the leg,' he whispered, feeling her eyes. He led her to the back wall and slid the biggest window open. Cobwebs tore but the window slid aside quietly and he lifted her and put her through to the outside, dreading the next part. He could barely bring himself to say it, but he couldn't think of any other way.

‘Run to the trees and turn left,' he said, flicking the safety off Ricks' rifle. His heart pounded in his throat as he cocked a bullet up into position with the lever. ‘Keep going until you get to the fence and turn left again, following it to the water.' He passed the loaded Winchester through the window and wrapped her cold hands around it. ‘Find Jack for me,' he said, clasping his hand tight over hers. ‘He needs this.'

Nikki stared at him as he let her take the weight. ‘I can't!'

‘You can when you see him,' he said. ‘It's cocked ready to fire. Be kind,' he added, swallowing hard. ‘Put it behind his ear.'

‘Lot of traffic on the water tonight,' the pilot told his loadmaster over the intercom.

‘Copy that,' the loadie said. ‘Fishing won't be good with a party like that going on — a boat, a plane
and
a bonfire. Breakout the Ninox and we can check out the girls.'

‘No fishing allowed on Wivenhoe,' the pilot said. ‘No power boats either.'

‘Do they count planes as boats? What is that, a Skywagon? Maybe they lifted the restrictions?'

‘I don't think so, gentlemen,' Chang interrupted. ‘Keep your eyes open. I think this might be the party our boy has come home to gatecrash.'

Chang figured they'd crept close enough and ordered the Iroquois to set down. He didn't know how long he'd be out, but he knew how much fuel he had in the tank, and he didn't want to break off surveillance for a lousy pit stop.

He chose a remote and empty camping ground on the north bank of the lake that was also inside a nine kilometre radius of the suspected objective. No matter which way Locklin went now, if he was there, they could close in on him. All they had to do was identify him, and Chang hoped they could do that by watching what everyone got up to.

‘Break out the TI,' he said, and the loadmaster carried out a black plastic briefcase. He opened it and set up a tripod with a Thermal Imager that looked pretty much like a fancy black camcorder, except it could take heat pictures using a laser rangefinder of any heat source up to nine clicks away. An extended range lens in the carry case could magnify that distance again, but they wouldn't need that. Maitland's farm and the party next door were easy watching at only seven clicks.

‘Got them, sir,' the loadie said. ‘Aside from a bunch of cows and a couple of roos, in the immediate vicinity it looks like we've got one on the boat that's got something small with him, like a really little kid or a small dog or something. There's two coming off the plane, four on the bank, one in the building, one in the forest and two more coming in a car.'

‘Good work,' Chang said. ‘Now all we have to do is figure out which one is him.'

‘Well, sir,' Beattie suggested. ‘We've still got Ryan at the hospital. We could get him to keep ringing until he picks up. I mean, even if he knows his sister's under surveillance, he might still pick up if he thinks it could be her.'

Chang nodded. ‘Yes, do that. Contact Ryan now.'

‘Hey, did you see that?' Parry asked, turning his neck sharply to look out his window.

Knox looked left, scanning the scrub along the track that followed the Scrubhaven-Freeman boundary to the boathouse. He couldn't see anything that was worth shouting about. ‘What did you see?'

Parry peered out his window again and saw nothing. ‘I don't know, movement — must have been a roo.'

‘Plenty of them around,' Knox said, turning left as the track bent away from the boundary. Through the trees ahead they saw lights and Knox pulled over and switched off his.

‘Looks like we made the party this time,' Knox said. ‘Let's make it a surprise party.' He passed the police strobe out his window and made sure it was switched off before letting the magnetic base suck it to the roof.

‘This car come with protection?' Parry asked.

‘Yeah, two in the boot,' Knox said, popping the lever. He got out and met Parry at the back, where he pulled out a pair of Kevlar vests and handed him one. They weren't completely bulletproof, but they'd stop a couple of rounds before their impact absorption was rooted.

‘Someone should paint targets on these,' Knox said, grinning, ‘so no-one aims at our heads by mistake.'

Parry would have grinned if his stomach wasn't so jumpy. It had been twenty-seven years since he'd felt the need to wear a vest, and the modern Kevlar units weren't much more comfortable than the old carbon-fibre ones. He slid a specially designed ceramic plate into a pouch inside the vest as a boost to its protection and put the vest on over his head before adjusting the velcro strap around his belly. ‘Ready,' he said.

Knox got back in the car and called in their position.

‘Not you again,' Jody Davenport said. ‘More dead bodies?'

Knox smiled. ‘Not yet I hope,' he said. ‘But maybe you should send an ambulance anyway.'

What Locklin needed was to blend in again, and he couldn't do that without a shirt. He scanned the cabin, hoping to find one, or at least a discarded jacket or a painting rag that he could put on and make it less obvious that he wasn't one of
them
. Nikki's shirt was too small aside from being soaked and he disposed of it in the water and closed the doors, hoping nobody would notice her wet footprints on the floor.

He heard a boat motor followed quickly by a loudspeaker. ‘Ahoy, Cessna! This is water rescue! Wivenhoe is closed to water traffic! Ahoy in the Cessna Skywagon, please stand down and —'

One shot from a Winchester silenced the loudspeaker. Locklin heard a splash and the sound of a boat running aground in the soft mud. The engine stalled and then voices headed quickly for the boathouse.

Nikki hid in the lantana until she was sure the maroon Falcon had passed. The tail-lights had switched off and the doors opened, making her heart pound faster and she used the adrenaline to pump her legs harder to the fenceline. She turned left as Locklin had told her and followed the fence back towards the lake.

‘Find Jack,' he'd asked and she had, but not standing as she had hoped. The big horse was down, his neck outstretched. He groaned as she approached, too weak to nicker.

Her hand found the wet fleshy wound on his rump, her nose told her about the blood and her heart told her she couldn't do what Locklin had asked of her. She held the muzzle to the horse's ear, shifting to the natural depression behind it, and wished the trigger to pull itself, but it didn't and she couldn't. She slumped to the ground beside Jack, putting the Winchester aside as she stroked his neck. He groaned under her touch. And then his saddlebag vibrated.

Locklin grabbed the Winchester and ran to the door, hiding just inside. The voices were coming, and it sounded like all of them at once. With luck, they'd all be looking at the paintings and he could slip out as soon as they came in, lock them in and threaten to shoot anyone who tried to get out while he called the cops on the radio in the boat or plane.

‘This way, Mr Moltoni,' Fletcher said.

The Italian came in first. Fletcher and Bricker came in next as Locklin had hoped, but the boathouse filled faster than he planned. The pilot stopped in the doorway, with Maitland and the other guy — Sykes, he thought — peering over his shoulder.

‘Make room,' Fletcher said, sending Bricker outside. ‘Can't see anything in here with everyone crowding in front of the light. Bricker,' he added, ‘pass me that lantern on your way out.'

Locklin took the chance to step out ahead of him while the lantern threw crazed shadows as it swung from one hand to another. He tucked his chin to his chest and hid his face behind his rifle and pushed out through the door saying ‘excuse me'.

‘Yeah right, mate,' the pilot said, letting him through.

Maitland didn't notice him. He was watching to see what the Italian thought of his handiwork. Locklin made it past him, but Sykes slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Get wet, Heath? She soaked me too.'

Locklin nodded, keen to get out of there, just as Maitland looked up.

‘Hey! You're the guy on the horse!'

Locklin shoved Maitland into Sykes, knocking them to the ground as he took off. He needed cover and the Landcruiser parked at the side was the closest. He rounded the corner of the boathouse at a run and ran straight into the maroon bonnet of a car as a siren sounded once and a strobe light dazzled everyone. Locklin shouldered into the bonnet and rolled over it, landing on his feet like a cat on the passenger side.

‘Shots fired! Take cover!' he shouted into a face he'd seen earlier that day.

‘What the hell was that?' Knox asked, watching Locklin lunge underneath the Landcruiser and scurry to the other side.

Parry saw the two men with shotguns first. ‘Reverse, now!' he shouted. Too late. Bricker and Sykes ran with their weapons and two shots exploded through the windscreen as Knox threw the Falcon in reverse. Lever actions reloaded and Locklin saw Knox get winged above his elbow. Parry recoiled from a glass knick across his cheek and then they both bailed out and hit the grass. The Falcon took three more hits as it ran backwards into a tree.

Bricker saw Parry move, reloaded, aimed and caught him in the hip and then ran forward to finish him off. He ran straight into Locklin's sights and went down screaming and clutching his leg. Locklin could have killed him but he chose not to, dropping his shot out of the kill zone to leave some of them for Justice to punish. He spun the Winchester towards the Mercedes, eyeing down the scopes, but finding no-one.

Funny, he thought, he was sure he'd seen Sykes trying to circle around that way.

Kalin Burkett walked back to his desk at Sydney Police Headquarters, wondering where to start.

‘Stir things up,' he'd told Parry, and the best place to do that, he realised, was with Aaron Fletcher. If the guy was in Queensland, now was the best time to ring his secretary and find out if she'd try to make out that he was still in Sydney.