Tropic of Death (3 page)

‘Both,’ was the reply. ‘We’ve intercepted part of a technical report sent to the anti-war movement in the town. It contains classified figures on radiation emissions. We’ve traced the source to level four.’

‘Have you identified the leak?’

‘Not yet, but we’re narrowing the list of suspects.’

‘Surely timing is critical,’ said the Englishman. ‘You’re only hours away from a mass protest at your gates. This whole issue could blow up in your face.’

‘I’m well aware of that,’ said the director-general, ‘which is why I’ve called you here in the middle of the night. That’s what this meeting is about. I want agreement on our immediate strategy.’

An American, Rhett Molloy, spoke next. ‘I hope I don’t have to stress that any breach of security is unacceptable. There’s too much at stake here.’

‘Thanks for stating the obvious,’ said the man sitting opposite.

He was Roy Maddox, the base security director.

‘Let me make myself clear,’ said Molloy, an edge to his voice beneath the smooth West Coast intonation. ‘When I say
unacceptable
, I mean there can be no risk of secrecy being compromised. None whatsoever. There are no excuses. Failure won’t be tolerated.’

‘Don’t doubt for a moment we’re prepared to do what’s necessary to defend the project,’ said Baxter.

‘Defence is not enough. You have to be proactive in eliminating any threats. Even after the event, they must be traced and silenced.

If there’s any hesitation over this, let me assure you, by one agency or another, absolute secrecy will be enforced.’

‘We’ve already taken steps to limit the damage,’ said the security director. ‘And we’re in the process of putting spoilers in place.’

‘Fine, but half-measures won’t be enough. Let’s not forget why we’re here. This is no ordinary piece of military real estate. This research establishment will produce a crucial weapon for the global coalition against terrorism.’ Molloy spoke with such conviction it sent a chill through the room. ‘We are representatives of an alliance at war. Extreme measures are justified.’

5
The club bouncer came outside to give his eardrums a rest and found himself confronted by a wall of rain and a skyful of pyrotechnics. The storm was at its height, but the noise of the thunder was a relief after the teeth-jarring feedback from the amplifiers. He stood in the doorway of the club and watched a cascade of water churn past the bottom step.

When he’d finished his cigarette he flicked it into the puddle spreading under the entrance canopy. The butt bobbed and drifted with the slow eddy of the current. As he watched it he noticed a trickle of red swirling through the water. It aroused his curiosity.

The longer he gazed at the red stain in the puddle, the thicker it got. Looks like blood, he thought.

He peered up the slope through the rain. At first he couldn’t see anything. Then a lightning flash revealed a dark hump in the gutter. Might not be anything. Just a rubbish bag kicked down the alley by larrikins. They were doing it all the time. But the stain kept coming and he got a bad feeling about it.

He went back inside the club, then emerged again and, hoisting a striped umbrella over his head, stepped out into the pouring rain. Nearly halfway up the alley he stopped beside the crumpled shape in the gutter. The darkness and the splash of water all around made it difficult to be sure of what he’d found. But when he prodded it with his shoe he caught his breath. He was bending over for a closer look when another flash came - and left him standing bolt upright. The twisted shape of the dead body seemed to leap out at him from the gutter.

The bouncer hurried back to the club. Just one minute later he was back out again, this time with the manager. The two men stood under the umbrella with the rain soaking their shoes and trousers, while the manager shone a torch on the slumped figure and swore under his breath. Parts of the body were missing. There was no head. Where the neck should be there was a raw gaping wound still leaking blood. Part of the spine was protruding. The hands had also been cut off.

When Detective Sergeant Steve Jarrett arrived police had already taped off the alley and a photographer was taking close-ups of the body in the glare of arc lights. A uniformed constable was helping to keep the rain off by holding one of the supports of the overhead plastic sheeting. The duty doctor sat in a police incident van nearby. He was writing in his notebook that he’d pronounced life extinct in the homicide victim. Scene-of-crime officers were examining the narrow surroundings.

Jarrett got out of his car, turned up the collar of his jacket and walked around the parked patrol vehicles. Then he stepped over the tape and jogged down the alley. The downpour had eased to a steady shower. The lightning and thunder had receded down the coast. A faint glimmer of first light appeared beneath the rim of the clouds in the east.

Inside the club officers were questioning the customers. The music and drinking had stopped, all the lights were on, no one was allowed to leave and the mood was getting ugly. Jarrett was greeted with catcalls, jeers and feral eyes. A detective constable came over to him.

‘E-freaks,’ he said. ‘They want to go on raving till dawn.’

Jarrett shook his head sombrely. ‘I called the pathologist before I left. He should be here in about ten minutes.’ He looked around.

‘What have we got so far?’

‘A headless woman,’ said the constable. ‘No purse, no ID on her. No weapon at the scene. No hands either.’

Jarrett gave him a heavy look. ‘Just what we need - another anonymous victim with missing body parts.’

6
The turnout for the protest was better than expected despite the fierce midday sun and tropical humidity. More than a thousand demonstrators were marching along the road bordering defence department land towards the gates of the Whitley Sands research base. Rachel Macarthur had organised it well. There was a good media contingent - radio journalists, local newspaper reporters, photographers, a TV crew - and a low-profile police presence. But where was Rachel herself? Her fellow organisers had decided not to wait for her. They started the march on schedule and hoped she’d arrive in time for the sit-down demo and rallying speeches in front of the gates.

The chanting and placard-waving intensified as the marchers converged on the base entrance. The police called for backup as groups of protesters sat down, blocking the road, while others began massing at the gates and pressing against them, urged on by an activist with a megaphone. That’s when the chains and bolt-cutters suddenly appeared. Anti-war militants and eco-warriors in the crowd weren’t content to listen to speeches. Already they were cutting holes in the perimeter fence. Others were chaining themselves to the gates. From within the base, squads of military police came charging towards the breaches in the fence, ready to tackle the intruders. Placards were being hurled. It was on the verge of turning into a riot when the violence was cut short by a piercing scream.

Everyone stopped. Police. Protesters. Even the cameras swung around to where the scream had come from on the far side of the road. All they could see at first was a woman on her knees, sobbing, her knuckles clutched against her mouth, her face staring upwards at a pylon that stood directly opposite the gates. As they followed the direction of her gaze there was a collective gasp. On a spike projecting from the metal leg of the pylon was a severed head. A woman’s head. Her dead eyes were staring at the base.

7
Freddy Hopper sat in the airless heat of the police interrogation room, perspiring freely and feeling in need of serious narcotics. It was two hours since his dead girlfriend’s head had been retrieved from where it had been skewered on an electricity pylon. His relationship with Rachel Macarthur was at times volatile, they’d rowed in public and his jail-time for creating the Edge of Chaos virus had given him a bad reputation and bad friends. More than once he’d stormed out of their rented house and taken a prolonged break from her disapproval. But Freddy resented being a suspect in Rachel’s murder. His emotions shuffled between anger and grief as Detective Sergeant Jarrett questioned him, recording his answers on an interview tape.

‘So you can’t think of anyone who’d want to hurt Rachel?’

asked Jarrett.

‘No one specifically,’ answered Freddy, ‘apart from the police, the government and the research base.’

‘Why are you sweating so much, Freddy?’

‘Because it’s bloody hot in here.’

‘You’re wriggling like a lizard in a tin, so I know you’re lying about something.’

‘I didn’t touch Rachel,’ he insisted. ‘I didn’t even see her last night. I couldn’t have. Just ask the monks.’

‘An officer is on the phone to them now,’ said Jarrett. ‘But tell me, for the record, what you were doing?’

‘I got a call from St Cedd’s yesterday afternoon.’

‘What time?’

‘About four. The monastery’s computers had crashed, the website was offline, their programs were corrupted and they wanted me to come to their rescue.’

‘Why you?’ asked Jarrett.

‘Because I helped set up their system.’

Jarrett couldn’t help laughing. ‘The holy brothers got a depraved hacker like you to put them on the net? That’s priceless.’

‘One of them was an altar boy at our church when we were kids,’ retorted Freddy.

‘What time did you go there?’

‘I drove up straightaway to catch the tide. I must’ve crossed the causeway to the island by five but it took hours of work to get them up and running again. A virus had attacked their software.’

‘One of yours?’

‘When are you all going to get off my back?’ snapped Freddy.

‘I developed the virus as a test program. Its release was an accident.

One day you’ll all realise your mistake.’

‘Careful, Freddy. That sounds like a threat.’

They were interrupted by a detective constable knocking and entering the room.

‘The monks confirm Freddy’s story,’ the officer said. ‘He arrived late afternoon, fixed their website and was caught on the island by the high tide. They put him up for the night in one of their monastic cells, would you believe?’ The officer gave a grunt of admiration. ‘I think that’s what you call a perfect alibi.’

Freddy stood up. ‘Can I go now?’

‘Okay.’ Jarrett nodded. ‘But I know you’re lying about something

- and I’ll find out what.’

‘Whatever.’

Freddy blew out a sigh of relief as he walked out of the police station and crossed the street. He was relieved to be away from the stifling interview room and out from under the penetrating gaze of the detective sergeant.

As he dodged between pavement cafe tables in the shade of palm trees, Freddy pulled out his mobile phone and fired off a text to someone with special connections. It was a dealer who claimed he could get his hands on a military code-breaker, something Freddy was in the market for. With that sort of technology at his disposal, beating the Whitley Sands firewall became a real possibility. He was determined now to pull off a revenge mission against the research base. In the meantime, he planned a free fall into forgetfulness.

8
Rita was sitting in the squad room doing nothing in particular when Detective Inspector Jack Loftus called her into his office.

She hoped it meant a decision had finally been made about her new role as a criminal profiler. She found Loftus watering the potted fern by his window.

‘Make yourself comfortable,’ he told her.

She sat down and watched him remove a dying frond then check the moisture around the plant’s roots, before placing his china watering can on a shelf beside a framed photo of his grandchildren. His meditative ritual over, the head of Sex Crimes glanced at the clouds accumulating over the city skyline, sat down behind his desk and looked at her squarely.

‘The good news is they’ve created a new position for you, complete with a new title and a higher pay grade,’ he said.

‘Thank God, at last!’ said Rita with relief. ‘I was starting to doubt it would ever happen.’

‘You’ll be appointed the force’s Special Police Investigative Resources Officer.’

‘That’s a mouthful.’

‘Yes,’ Loftus agreed. ‘Not my choice, by the way.’

‘And it spells SPIRO,’ she observed. ‘Bit of a dubious honour.

Which bureaucratic genius came up with that? No, let me guess.

Nash.’

‘As a matter of fact it
was
Superintendent Nash.’

‘That figures,’ said Rita. ‘Does a big new office come with the title?’

‘Sadly, no. Nor will your new post come under the umbrella of the Intelligence Data Centre or the Behavioural Analysis Unit.

Essentially, you’ll be on your own.’

‘Is that the bad news?’

‘Partly. And it means you’ll no longer have a desk in the squad room. There was even a suggestion of shifting you to another building in the city.’

‘Nash again,’ she said. ‘He’d like to sideline me, Jack.’

‘Well, I’ve forestalled him. The room you use for research is now our Criminal Profiling Archive. So you stay where you are. Nash isn’t the only one who can play with formalities,’ Loftus added with a rueful smile. ‘The announcement of your new appointment will be made tomorrow and you’ll start in the job six weeks from now.’

Rita couldn’t help smiling broadly. ‘I can’t believe it’s really happening. All the hard work and study was worth it.’

‘You can be proud of what you’ve achieved. You’ve broken new ground at a difficult time for the force.’

‘I have, haven’t I?’ But as she relaxed she noticed he was frowning. ‘Do I detect a note of caution?’

‘You know as well as I do what’s going on around us - “the battle within”. We’re on shifting ground between reform and resistance to change.’

‘And I know which side I’m on.’

‘Exactly.’ Loftus rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘It’s just as well you’re staying where I can keep an eye on you.’

‘You’re worried I’m going to tread on people’s toes.’

‘Sometimes you need reminding about which battles to fight.

And because I’m the one who set you on your present career path, I have a responsibility to watch your back.’