Tropic of Death (39 page)

‘I’ve heard about him. I don’t know his background. But he’s certainly looking for the disk. As is the owner of the club, Billy Bowers. So you see, it’s complicated.’

‘You still haven’t explained,’ said Eve, ‘why the attachment from Ice was blank.’

‘I can’t answer that,’ said Rita. ‘But if my suspicions are right, someone at the base opened and erased it.’

They fell silent for a moment, each deep in thought, with just the music playing quietly in the room, until Ronsard added,

‘So the killers are watching.’

47
The tide was in, Brother Ignatius had returned hours earlier and Freddy was feeling completely chilled, stretched in the grass under the fig tree, gazing at the night sky.

‘Time to go inside,’ said Stonefish. ‘No one can get across the causeway now.’

Freddy roused himself. ‘Okay.’

He got up clumsily, suddenly light-headed, brushed off a few twigs and leaves, and followed his friend through the stone archway of the monastery. Without warning, Stonefish stopped dead in his tracks and Freddy stumbled into his back.

‘What the -?’ he began, then stopped.

Walking towards them across the courtyard were Billy Bowers and two of his bouncers.

‘Well, look who we’ve found,’ said Billy. ‘Not one, but two arseholes.’ He stood in front of them, blocking their way. ‘Who’d have thought we’d score a double whammy by dropping in un -

announced.’

‘You came by boat,’ said Stonefish. ‘Shit.’

‘Quite right,’ said Billy. ‘And that’s how we’re all gonna leave, nice and quietly, so as not to disturb the monks.’

‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ said Stonefish.

Billy’s expression hardened. ‘Look, we don’t want to spill blood here, if we can avoid it. We don’t want to make a messy exit for the brothers.’

‘Your threats don’t bother me, Billy.’ Stonefish’s defiance seemed to be toughening. ‘In fact, you don’t bother me at all.’

Freddy gave him a warning tug. ‘Take it easy.’

But Stonefish shrugged it off. ‘No. He’s due to take a fall.’

Billy’s fists were clenched. ‘Is that why you gave the dirt to the newspaper?’

‘Damn right.’

Now Billy was standing right up against him, their faces just centimetres apart.

‘Where’s the disk?’

Stonefish didn’t budge. ‘I haven’t got it.’

Billy nodded to a bouncer. ‘Search him.’

The bouncer did as he was told then shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Stonefish told him. ‘Anyway, what’s it to you?’

‘Business. I’ve got competing offers on an auction site I set up - like on eBay. It’s worth a lot of ready cash, something I’m in need of right now, so I’m not in the mood to piss around.’ Then he yelled into Stonefish’s face: ‘Where’s the fucking disk?!’

But Stonefish didn’t back down. ‘It’s not even on the island.’

‘So who did you give it to?’ Billy switched his gaze to Freddy then back again. ‘Who would you trust?’

‘Someone else who isn’t frightened of you.’

‘Ha!’ he scoffed. ‘You gave it to Ice for safekeeping, you sneaky prick.’

‘Leave her alone. She ran an errand for me, that’s all.’

‘And that’s all I need to know.’ Billy was grinning now, showing his teeth. He planted a heavy hand on Stonefish’s shoulder. ‘Now what were you saying about me?’

‘Go fuck yourself.’

Billy laughed. ‘You’re begging for it, you loser!’

While he held a shoulder down with one hand, Billy clamped a powerful grip around Stonefish’s jaw with the other, then jerked it until, with a sickening crack, he dislodged the skull from the spine. Eyes bulging, air rasping in his throat, Stonefish crumpled and dropped to the ground, dead.

As Freddy looked on in horror, a shriek split the air. It came from where a group of monks watched, open-mouthed, from an upper window.

‘Shit,’ said Billy under his breath, before turning and shouting at them: ‘Fuck off, before I start on you!’

The window emptied as they scattered.

‘Time to make holiday plans,’ Billy said to the bouncers. ‘But I need some breathing space while I sort things out. Go and make sure the brethren can’t communicate with the outside world.

Phones, computers - knock ‘em all out. Their van, their boat.

Scuttle them as well.’ He turned to Freddy. ‘And you’re coming with me.’

Freddy glanced at the lifeless body sprawled at Billy’s feet and decided not to argue.

Freddy was throwing up for most of the powerboat ride back to Whitley - too much bobbing over the waves, too much dope, too much stomach-churning shock at what he’d witnessed. When the boat drew up at the wharf behind the Diamond, he was bundled out, then half shoved, half dragged up the fire escape and in through the back door to Billy’s office. The thumping bass from the nightclub below vibrated through the floor. He was dumped in a chair while Billy made arrangements to disappear after dawn, and in the meantime prepared to clear up unfinished business - a list that included the disk and Ice, along with Rita Van Hassel.

‘Bring me the guns,’ he said to a bouncer as he pulled on a tracksuit and sports shoes. Once he’d changed, he turned to Freddy. ‘Time for a quick workout with a punching bag.’ He slid a boxing glove onto his right hand. ‘Get up, Freddy.’

Freddy did as he was told.

‘I don’t like people who hold out on me.’

Billy let fly with a punch that put Freddy flat on the floor with a searing pain in his head, his jaw broken.

‘Get up!’

He wobbled to his feet, dazed, while Billy moved in with a jab that smashed through his ribcage. Freddy was on the floor again, coughing up blood and having trouble breathing.

‘Back on your feet, shitbag!’

It took an effort, but he managed it by holding onto the back of a chair, clutching his ribs, head spinning. The blow to Freddy’s intestines was so hard it connected with his spine and hurled him back against the wall, where he slid down and sagged on the floor like a rag doll, still conscious but in agony.

A bouncer arrived with the guns and spread them on the desk.

‘Good, I’ll need a couple,’ said Billy, picking through them.

‘One I can strap to my leg. And one with a silencer for Van Hassel to suck on.’

48
Three scented candles threw a muted glow around Ice’s penthouse bedroom, their flames reflected in gold-framed mirrors on the walls and ceiling. A raunchy track by a girl band throbbed from the music system. It was all part of the service, the seductive mood she created for her customers. She was naked, and on her knees, massaging the loins of the man standing in front of her, the diamond stud in her tongue stimulating his erect penis.

Ice was always in demand but the arrival of this client, in the early hours of the morning, had been unexpected. She didn’t want anything to do with him but she had no choice. Too late she realised how badly she’d miscalculated and, as the man tensed and ejaculated down her throat, she knew what to expect. He sighed and withdrew his penis. She looked up at him with terrified eyes and scrambled away on all fours, screaming, but he caught her by the bedroom door, held the nail gun to her forehead and fired.

Audrey was watching.

As she accessed the live surveillance of the Tracker it showed the nail-gunner cleaving off the dead woman’s hands, decapitating the body and placing the head in an ice bucket. Logically, the kill was necessary. The prostitute had chosen to become a hostile, posing a direct threat to the project, so Audrey felt no sympathy for the victim. The execution fell within authorisations provided by international directives. However, the number of deaths was increasing at an escalating pace and it posed the question: who would be the next to die within the sector? There appeared to be an immediate answer so Audrey switched the live input of the Tracker and turned her attention to a woman creating another set of problems.

Audrey was watching Rita.

Rita lay in her hotel bed, her head resting on a pillow, body limp, the fine features of her face relaxed in a peaceful expression.

For someone so provocative, Audrey observed, there was something of a gentle innocence in her sleep. Was her mind at ease in soft oblivion? Or was she dreaming? Audrey pushed the focus in closer. No movement beneath the eyelids. No sign of REM sleep.

Oblivion, then. Her mind switched off. In such a restful state there was no hint of the trouble she was causing for base security, who saw her as both a renegade and expendable.

Audrey’s assessment was different. In her view, Rita was intelligent and analytical, exhibiting a disciplined power of reason over emotion. She also possessed a scientific intellect with a dedication to the truth that was consistent with Audrey’s basic principles. Even the spiritual doubt was telling. Here was a mind that rejected the falseness of a socially constructed reality. Like Audrey, Rita understood there were many dimensions; that reality was multi-layered, with human beings living in a virtual flatland of perception. And there were other considerations. Although this police detective was acting independently of the interests of senior operatives at Whitley Sands, her level-one clearance gave her privileges provided by the base and the project.

Audrey continued to watch Rita. At the same time, the split vision input from the Tracker showed a man who was arriving at Rita’s hotel with a specific purpose. He planned to kill her.

49
Rita woke from a deep sleep, startled and disoriented. She sat bolt upright in bed, staring around wildly, only to realise the hotel phone was ringing. She snatched it up.

‘Hello, who’s that?’

But there was no one on the line. Noise was coming from her open laptop and from her mobile phone too. Both were pumping out ring tones and flashing the same message:
Security alert: code red!

‘Fuck,’ she said, clambering out of bed and pulling on some clothes without knowing what the message actually meant.

She tried calling Sutcliffe, then the police station, without getting an answer. Then the alert on the laptop promptly vanished.

She did a quick check of her emails but there was no indication of what was going on. Suspicious now, sensing danger, she pocketed her mobile and car keys, and collected her gun. Flicking the safety catch, she crept to the door of her hotel room, took a deep breath and flung it open. But the hallway was deserted.

She looked at her watch - ten past four - and as she walked to the lifts tried to think who could tell her what was happening.

Peter Luker’s number was on her mobile. She selected it and called him.

He answered immediately, his voice thick and rough.

‘Van Hassel?’

‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘The code red?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’ve got a security alert. My mobile, my laptop. What the fuck’s going on?’

‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘I don’t know about any alert. Where are you?’

‘The hotel.’

‘Our hotel, the Whitsunday?’

‘Yes.’

‘Something’s wrong,’ he said, his voice tense. ‘I’ll get dressed and meet you down in the lobby. Have you got your gun?’

‘Yes.’

‘Be prepared to use it.’

As he hung up, Rita noticed the lift had just left the reception level and was coming up. She watched the lights as it rose steadily floor by floor until it halted, right in front of her, on the fifth.

Pulse racing, she gripped the Glock 22 in both hands, pointing it at the lift doors. There was an agonising pause before they opened to reveal Billy Bowers. With a delayed reflex, the gun in his hand jerked upwards as Rita squeezed the trigger of the semi-automatic, firing four bullets into his chest.

Billy’s arm fell limply, his gun discharging a round through the top of his running shoe, as he hit the back of the lift, keeled over and collapsed on the floor, blood pooling out from the bullet holes in his heart. Rita stood rigid, knowing she’d killed him, the smell of the gunshots in her nostrils. The doors closed and Billy was gone.

By the time Rita got down to the lobby to wedge the lift doors open and check the body, Sutcliffe was returning her phone call.

‘My phone’s bleeping with a missed call from you,’ he said sleepily. ‘I hope it doesn’t mean I have to get out of bed at this hour of the morning.’

‘I just shot Bowers.’

‘Ah, that’s a big yes,’ he said. ‘Dead?’

‘With five bullets in him, four of them mine.’

‘Right. Where are you?’

‘Whitsunday Hotel.’

‘I’ll call in the team, leave it to me. I’m on my way.’

As Sutcliffe rang off, she found Luker standing beside her, bleary-eyed and badly dressed in a T-shirt that highlighted his paunch and canvas shorts that clung to spindly white legs.

16/2/09 10:02:46 AM

‘So you took my advice,’ he said, eyeing the corpse. ‘I thought you must’ve when I heard the shots.’

Standing behind him, a wide-eyed receptionist craned his neck to see, while a few curious guests wandered over from the stairs to see what the noise was about. Luker moved swiftly to shoo them off before ordering the receptionist to keep everyone away from the scene. With the lobby cleared he was back at Rita’s side.

‘Billy “The Beast” Bowers,’ he muttered. ‘This is big.’

‘Are you talking as a spook or a hack?’ asked Rita.

‘Both.’

‘I can do without any media coverage.’

‘I agree,’ said Luker. ‘Let me handle it. There are strings I can start pulling. Your name won’t come out.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t misunderstand - I’m doing it for security reasons, and Maddox has done us a favour by signing you up. I can argue you’re effectively on call.’

‘All I feel is out on a limb,’ she sighed, ‘with crocodiles waiting below.’

‘Including me?’ He grunted. ‘You may not like or trust me, but at the moment I’m your only ally.’

‘Well, you’re half right,’ she said. ‘I don’t trust you but I like you.’

‘Good for my ego, bad for my credibility.’

‘So what the fuck is going on? Who sent the alert? Who’s yanking my chain?’

Luker shook his head. ‘I’m working on it.’

By the time Rita held a debriefing session with Sutcliffe, Bryce and Jarrett, her cover story was in place. She told them everything, from the time she received the security alert to the moment she gunned down Bowers in the lift. But the full details would never go into a police file. They were classified, thanks to Luker.