Dead Heat (32 page)

“Georgia.” Daniel was on the edge of his stool, leaning close. “What’s wrong? Tell me. Please.”

“I want to find Lee,” she said.

“Well, we have something in common.”

“Badly,” she added, her tone turning desperate.

“Hmm.” He was nodding thoughtfully. “One reason I’m in town is because I wanted to check
Songtao
out again.”

“Lee’s yacht?”

“Yes. We’ve heard the crew are back in Nulgarra and that the captain’s on board, bringing in supplies. I reckon Lee’s going
to make a sharp exit anytime now. There’s a rumor that he was seen this morning with some woman, but nothing’s confirmed.
I’ve a suspicion Lee started the rumor anyway, as a red herring. But I’d still like to do a recon and, if he’s there, send
in the troops. And if he’s not, I’d like to check
Songtao
’s chart drawer. The captain would have got hold of the appropriate charts for their journey and destination, maybe Hawaii
and the USA, maybe Indonesia, China . . .”

He was still talking, but she wasn’t listening anymore.
Lee was seen this morning with some woman.
Was her mother already safe?

Mind whirling, she half watched a couple walk past Jack Mundy’s bait shop, and the next vehicle that came into view was a
black Mercedes.

She sat there in shock.

It was Jason Chen’s car.

The Merc cruised along Ocean Road and disappeared from view, leaving her with sweat springing on her skin and a sick shivering
inside. Sunday was the day after tomorrow. Thirty-six hours until the deadline.

Daniel pulled out his mobile and dialed. “Pete? Yeah, it’s me . . . Oh. Right. Okay.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll give
it a try. Otherwise tomorrow. Owe you, mate. Thanks.”

He pushed his phone back into his rear pocket. “Apparently the captain’s still on board, but Pete says he usually goes ashore
for a meal around six. He suggested I go down there and wait until the captain leaves.” Daniel downed his beer in three long
gulps. “I’ll see you in an hour or so.”

She glanced down the street where the black Merc had vanished. Were they also headed for
Songtao
and maybe Lee and her mother?

“I’m coming too.”

“No.”

Daniel’s face was set hard and she could see that gleam of something dangerous and dark sliding at the back of his eyes.

“If you see Lee, you’ll shoot him, won’t you?”

“Given half the chance, yes, I will.” Putting his glass on the bar, he said, “You wait here,” and walked outside. She slung
her handbag strap over her head and across her chest and tore after him.

On the street, he turned around, faced her. “Go away.”

She stuck her jaw out at him. “No. You’ll have to handcuff me to the bar, and since you don’t seem to have any handcuffs,
I’m coming too.”

“Okay, I promise I won’t shoot him. Just arrest him and stick him in jail for the rest of his life. Does that help?”

“No.”

“Seriously, Georgia, it might be dangerous—”

“I can look after myself,” she said defensively. “I know how to shoot a gun.”

“So I heard.” His tone was astringent.

Hell, she thought. Was nothing sacrosanct in this town?

“And since you mention it,” he added, “I do have some cuffs. In the car. You really want me to cuff you?”

She wanted to be flippant and say, “Only if there are a couple of bedposts to hand and you’re naked,” but didn’t dare. He
didn’t look as though he’d appreciate such a comment right now.

Sweeping a hand back at the National, he said, “Inside. And
stay.
”

His gesture reminded her of Jon, and Cookie’s immediate response to obey her master, but she wasn’t Cookie, and Daniel certainly
wasn’t her master.

B
y the time Daniel came out of the harbormaster’s office and padded down the southernmost pontoon, the moon was above the horizon,
turning the fiberglass hulls silver. Georgia never had become used to how fast night fell out here. For the first part of
her life in England she’d experienced long dusks that in summer stretched for three or four hours, but in Australia it was
as though somebody switched off a light.

Treading carefully, she followed the dark shadow that was Daniel as he slipped from boat to boat. The air was warm and soft
and smelled of leaves rotting in mud. She was jumpy and kept glancing around, looking for the Chens, but all was quiet and
still. The black Mercedes was nowhere to be seen.

Nor, suddenly, was Daniel. Pausing, she looked hard down the pontoon but couldn’t see any movement. Cautiously, she crept
forward, past a handful of tin boats bobbing on the tide, scanning the area, anxious now, wondering if he’d seen something
she hadn’t, whether he—

A rush of cloth, and before she could turn a hand clamped over her mouth, a strong arm went around her waist, and she was
being dragged to one side and she was wriggling and yelping with fright until she heard him hissing, “Shut up, Georgia. It’s
me.
Shut up.
”

Breathing hard, she felt him release his grip, step back.

“Christ,” he whispered. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You’re like a piece of chewing gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe!” He was running a hand through his hair despairingly.
“Why won’t you go
away
!”

He then gave her a lengthy lecture on letting the police do their job, followed by a string of clichés about how the cops
know everything and the general public are a clueless bunch who should leave them alone, and by the time he’d finished, his
breathing had leveled and he was calm.

“So you’ll let me come with you,” she said.

“Jesus. You are so
stubborn
!”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“No. I want you to turn around and go back to the hotel. Now.”

“But what if someone sees me? Won’t it jeopardize your recon?”

“I don’t care. I don’t want you around.”

They were whispering furiously in the shadows of an elegant sloop called
Hopalong Too
and a riviera from Nelson, New Zealand, named
Micky’s Dream. Songtao
was brightly lit but she couldn’t see anyone moving inside. Nobody else appeared to be on their boats. It was eerily silent
except for the odd mosquito whining past her ear.

“I won’t let you shoot Lee,” she said. “He saved my life.”

“Sometimes,” he said, sounding like he was gritting his teeth, “I wish he hadn’t.”

“How are you going to get on board?” she asked. “Won’t the captain lock it up when he leaves? Doesn’t it have an alarm?”

“I’ve a key and Pete gave me the code.”

“How come Pete knows it?”

“What is this? Twenty questions? Will you please . . . Shit.”

Daniel held up his hand, pointing at
Songtao.
All but two lights had gone out. Daniel took her hand and pulled her toward
Hopalong Too.

“Get on,” he whispered. “The captain’s leaving.”

She scrambled over the railings and dropped inside, ducking low behind the cockpit coaming. Daniel followed. He was peering
through the railings and just as he whispered, “Here he comes,” she heard the soft thud-thud of deck shoes on the pontoon.
Daniel pulled his head back.

The footsteps faded, then disappeared.

Silence.

Daniel whispered that they should give the captain five minutes before they moved.

“Is the captain part of the RBG?” she asked.

“Not that I’m aware of. Lee hired him full-time a year or so back, to keep his boat ticking over when he’s away. He turns
the engines over, keeps the carpets vacuumed, and so on. Lee can turn up anytime he wants and the captain’s ready to go.”

“This captain sailed
Songtao
from Cairns?”

“Yup.”

She wanted to ask Daniel what the captain had said about Ronnie Chen’s murder, but decided not to go down that path since
she might let something slip implicating Lee. No doubt the captain earned a bucketload of money to keep his mouth shut on
behalf of his employer.

“What about crew?”

“The captain hires them.”

He glanced at his watch, gave it a couple more minutes, then they clambered back onto the pontoon.

“Off you go,” he told her, shooing her away. “And if I find you following me . . .”

Daniel suddenly bent over and slapped at a mosquito on his ankle and at the same time she heard a fish plop nearby. It sounded
like a stone being dropped in the water. She paused at another
plop
and peered down into the sea.

Fish, she thought, and at the same time Daniel lunged for her and dragged her facedown onto the pontoon. She was yelping,
but she wasn’t making enough noise to prevent her hearing another plopping sound. Daniel was pressing her low, his voice urgent.
“They’re shooting at us. Get into the water.”

“Why the—”

“Just do it,” he snapped.

Georgia opened her mouth to say something but yelped when there was a
thunk
and a splinter sprang in front of Daniel’s chin.

“You can swim, can’t you?” he bit out, but she was already wriggling to the side of the pontoon and sliding over the edge,
handbag still across her chest, and into the sea. She saw Daniel yank his mobile free and, holding it high, lunge after her,
feet first, head and shoulders following.

Georgia’s lungs contracted at the chill. Being in the tropics, she had expected the sea to be warm, but it wasn’t. She kicked
off her shoes and, hanging on to a wooden piling, held Daniel’s phone while he pulled off his boots. Immediately she started
punching numbers with her thumb. Dialed India’s number.

Footfalls hammered on the wooden planking above. She kept looking upward, dreading seeing an assassin’s face, a gun. She started
to shiver and wondered if Daniel was doing the same.

“Hello?” said India.

“We’re at the harbor, get help, quick”—but fell silent as Daniel held up his hand.

“Georgia?” India was whispering back. “You still there?”

A flash pierced the darkness, and she clutched the slimy, limpet-crusted wood, shuddering as the flashlight swept the water
all around.

Daniel snatched the phone from her and punched in another number. Hissed something into the receiver. Reaching into her sodden
handbag, she pulled out her own phone and pressed start but nothing happened. The thing was waterlogged.

She heard the low guttural sound of Cantonese, and then the beam came toward them, carefully scanning the surface of the water.
Pinching his nostrils between two fingers, Daniel sent Georgia an urgent look and pointed downward with his other hand.

No, no! she thought, panicky, pointing at his phone. Daniel gestured his helplessness. The flashlight shifted position to
light the water beneath the planks. It was coming directly for them.

He whispered, “Harbor, now,” into the phone. They both looked desperately for somewhere to lodge it. Shit. She saw him shove
it in his breast pocket and give her a nod. Both of them took a deep lungful of air and slowly sank underwater, forcing themselves
down the length of the piling with their arms and legs. Georgia kept her eyes open, looking at the surface, ignoring the way
they stung and throbbed against the salt water. Everything was murky and blurred, but the flashlight seemed bright as the
sun. She realized her T-shirt was billowing vivid yellow around her and inched herself down farther. The flashlight slowly
approached.

Her lungs began to protest as she watched the flashlight’s beam. In tortuous slow motion, it scanned the water above their
heads.

Come on, come on, she thought. We’ve gone the other way.

The flashlight continued methodically to search the surface. Lungs aching, she released a little air, and saw a twin tiny
trail of bubbles rise from Daniel’s lips. Desperate now, she concentrated on the flashlight and not the screaming in her chest.

Have to go up soon, she thought, or I’ll explode to the surface and they won’t miss that. She saw the flashlight move away
and Daniel point upward. Thank God. They began to inch their way to the surface.

It took every effort to rise in slow motion, not to ruffle the water’s surface as she rose. Her lungs were shrieking with
the need to inhale. She cautiously released a little more air.

Abruptly, the flashlight changed direction and she forgot all about breathing as it skimmed over them once again. Then it
changed direction, sweeping the water toward the shore.

Her head broke the surface and her mouth was open, her lungs heaving, pumping gallons of blissful oxygen through her body.
Her heart pounded and her vision was distorted from salt water. Her body’s emergency responses seemed so loud that she was
amazed their would-be killers didn’t hear them. They were gasping and heaving like a couple of sperm whales breaching.

Georgia pointed at his pocket but his phone had gone, sunk to the bottom of the harbor, dammit. Gradually she tuned in to
the faint muttering of Cantonese, fading now. Daniel touched Georgia’s shoulder, raised his eyebrows, mouthed, “Okay?”

She gave him a thumbs-up.

His voice was low as he said, “Swim to
Songtao
? They’re expecting us to swim to the shore, not away from it. We can use the boat’s sat phones to call for more help.”

She gave him another thumbs-up.

“Stay under cover,” he whispered, “and submerge if any more shooting starts.”

She didn’t reply, simply pushed herself gently from the piling and started swimming. By the time they made it to
Songtao
’s stern they were both breathing heavily. Daniel checked Georgia as she gripped the swim ladder and started to pull herself
out of the water, and whispered, “Me first.”

“You think there are more?” she whispered back, dismayed.

“I’ll check.”

She watched him ease silently onto the swim platform, up the vertical ladder, and over the transom.

She was damned if she was going to wallow here freezing cold, she thought, and scrambled onto the swim platform after him.
Soundless, she congratulated herself, until she realized she was streaming with water, which in turn dripped loudly onto teak.
Hastily she slipped up the ladder to the stern deck and the glass doors leading to the saloon, where she thought Daniel had
gone.