The Delta Chain (19 page)

He heard the front door buzzer and went down
to the ground floor to open it. An unsmiling, agitated Sandy
Bingham walked in, not waiting for a welcome. ‘We need to
talk.’

‘This isn’t a good time.’

Bingham glared at Westmeyer. ‘You haven’t
been returning my calls-’

‘I’ve been out of the office and the house.
Needed to recharge the batteries.’

‘Don’t cut me out, William. It’s because of
my support you were able to build your centre here-’

‘Calm down. Let me fix you a drink. If we
must talk keep your voice down and let’s make it brief.’ Westmeyer
nodded toward the stairs. ‘I’m not alone.’

‘Where…?’

‘It’s all right. Upstairs in the main
shower.’ They moved further into the entertaining area. Westmeyer
pulled the sliding door across, then went to the bar and poured two
glasses of scotch.

‘You assured me, there was absolutely no
chance of negative publicity affecting the town.’

‘There won’t be.’

‘This blasted floater, no ID, now the police
are aware the situation is similar to the one up in Morrissey. Now
the media are jumping on the bandwagon.’

‘It’s unfortunate, I admit. Wasn’t meant to
happen.’

‘Unfortunate? What if they find others…?’

‘That won’t happen,’ Westmeyer assured
him.

‘For Chrissakes, William, Kirby wants to
bring in senior investigators from the city…’

‘He’s not homicide, surely he doesn’t have
that authority-’

‘He can make the request.’

‘Can’t you make sure the request is
declined?’

‘I’m working on it, but that’s three now,
with the one down in New South-’

‘Nothing further will come of it,’ Westmeyer
repeated the point, disguising his own sense of unease. ‘There’s no
trail to follow. Just keep me filled in on what’s happening with
the police investigation, and the media.’

Bingham filled him in while they finished
their drinks.

After seeing the mayor to the door, Westmeyer
fixed himself another scotch and poured a glass of chardonnay for
Meredith. He did not suspect she had stepped from the shower just
as the doorbell buzzed.

Her curiosity piqued, wondering whether
Westmeyer had other women friends, Meredith had draped a towel
around herself and tiptoed to the top of the stairs. When Westmeyer
had pulled the sliding door across, she’d moved half way down the
stairs, the voices from the living room muffled but still
audible.

She didn’t know who the other man was but
she’d listened, confused and concerned, to every word they’d
said.

She’d liked William Westmeyer but now she
feared her antenna was all wrong.

There was a much darker side to him. This was
a driven man obsessed with achieving some perceived greatness, this
was a man who was the complete opposite to the father he’d
described.

She felt a wave of disgust as she moved
stealthily back up the stairs.

It was the second day of his journey and he
had no idea where he was headed or what his destination should be.
He only knew he couldn’t bear to be parted from the girl he
loved.

Daniel knew he had to find her.

Whatever the future now held, in a world so
strange to them, he knew they had to face it together.

He’d been walking for three hours solid that
morning. He stopped now and knelt beside the shallow creek. He
scooped up handfuls of fresh water and ran it through his hair and
over his face. He popped open the bottle of warm spring water and
took several long swigs.

Daniel had set off the previous morning,
before dawn, with just a backpack carrying basic change of clothes,
and food and drink for a few days. He hadn’t taken any of the main
roads that led to the large towns. He’d done the opposite to what
anyone might have expected. He’d gone into the deep woods that led
up and over the mountain range to even more desolate country.

The Keepers wouldn’t expect that.

Now a plan began to take shape in his mind.
He would travel deep into the north-east pocket of the ranges, then
veer further north. Eventually he’d come out on the fringes of the
wilderness that straddled the New South Wales and Queensland
border. His pocket compass would help guide him. From there,
traversing the back roads, he would head across country and
approach the city of Brisbane from the west.

He decided he’d be less conspicuous in the
nearest big city, one face among millions. He wondered what that
would be like, feeling curiosity and fear in the same instant. Then
he could begin the next stage, the stage when he began
his
search.

For Elizabeth.

On the morning after the funeral Kate had
seen Adam off from the airport. She’d insisted he return to
Northern Rocks and his work there. Her family now needed time
alone. Kate wanted to stay on, for a short while, with her
parents.

She returned to her parents’ house, now a
place of subdued grief. Her mother, who’d been sedated for most of
the past few days, was in the upstairs bedroom. Her father was
haunting the corridors of the elegant, older-style house, looking
for ways to keep occupied. Still forcing back tears. Quietly
letting them flow at least once a day.

Kate did not know how she would be able to
return to her work, to allow the natural rhythms of everyday life
sweep her up once more. She tried to turn her mind to the thoughts
that occupied her before that fateful phone call: the virus at the
Institute, Rhonda’s diary, the design discrepancy – but she
couldn’t focus on any of them. She was no longer certain she cared
about any of it.

Instead, the germ of another idea invaded her
thoughts and, as the hours passed, it grew and grew until she
picked up the phone and called James Reardon.

Reardon was pleased to hear from her. ‘If
there’s anything I can do to help, Kate, anything at all, you just
ask. Okay? And take as much time as you need. I’ll cover things
here at the Institute one way or another.’ Reardon was seated
before a bank of PC screens, in a room specially designated for
him.

‘Actually, James, I feel strange asking
this,’ Kate said, ‘but there
is
something you could do for
me.’

‘Name it.’

‘These bastards who killed Greg, they’re the
same hunters that rangers had vague reports about previously.
That’s what Greg was investigating-’

‘I know you like to get things done, Kate,’
Reardon sensed the kind of request to come, ‘but you can’t do the
police’s job for them.’

‘No, but I could help them, introduce them to
new systems for locating these killers.’

‘The police already have sophisticated
systems of their own. Adam will tell you that.’

‘Yes, but I’m referring to newly developing
stuff in experimental stages. And while outer regions up in the
Territory have access to national resources, they may not have the
knowledge or application skills to use them in a situation like
this one.’ Kate was speaking in rapid fire, her voice charged with
anxiety.

‘Okay. Calm down. And take three deep breaths
for me, okay?’

‘All right.’ Kate followed his
instruction.

‘Right. Now tell me what you have in
mind.’

‘I want to get hold of something from that
colleague of yours, the military contractor whose company develops
hardware systems for the military.’

‘You’re talking about Rensens.’

‘Yes.’

‘
Kate, anything to do with defence is
strictly out of bounds-’

‘I know, I know. But this is one of their
commercial applications. It’s intended for police, for farmers, for
the security industry, for the insurance sector. The Landscan III
satellite tracker. The last thing I read they’d been successfully
running trials on prototypes.’

‘Yep,’ Reardon said. ‘Long range satellite
signals linked to a high-end laptop, made economical for general
business.’

‘It tracks via a micro sized pin that’s
transparent and undetectable,’ Kate said. ‘It can block anti-GPS
devices, and it transmits its signal hundreds of thousands of
kilometres from anywhere world-wide. …’

‘What’s this about-?’

‘That transmitter can attach to any surface,
fired from a purpose-built mini-gun. Get me one of those
prototypes, on loan.’

‘Whew! When you ask you sure ask big.’

‘James, if ever I needed help, then this is
it.’

‘And you want to make this available to the
police and the park rangers up there, instruct them-’

‘Yes. If they can locate the bastards just
once, as Greg did, and mark them with a micro transmitter they
could follow their movements, hunt them down.’

‘You’ll need more than one.’

‘One will do for starters.’

‘And you’d leave this manhunt to the
experts,’ Reardon said with a clear tone of misgiving.

‘Of course, James. I’m not stupid.’

‘No, but sometimes I think you may be the
most stubborn and determined woman I’ve ever come across.’

‘If it brings about the capture of these
hunters,’ Kate pressed, ‘it will be an incredible selling point for
Rensen’s unit.’

‘I don’t believe I’m saying this but let me
see what I can do.’

‘Thanks, James. I appreciate it.’ She hung up
the phone and, closing her eyes, she mouthed a silent prayer that
her request would be met. In her mind’s eye she saw herself as an
eight year old – skinny, gap toothed, hair drawn back in a
ponytail. As though looking through a time window into the past,
she watched as she played hide and seek with her slightly older
brother. They’d always been close, and she’d missed him since his
transfer to the Territory.

For the first time since the ordeal began,
she burst into tears.

The observer watched the approaching death
with a morbid curiosity.

The face of the victim was no more than a few
metres away from him and on two, brief, eerie moments their eyes
locked on one another. In each instance the watcher felt his pulse
quicken, the old, familiar sense of excitement exploding deep
inside.

The sensation caused a giddiness and to
offset it, he sucked in short, sharp mouthfuls of air. Then
breathed in and out slowly. That was how he’d been taught him to
deal with the sensation in this particular situation.

It felt strange to be so close to this victim
but at the same time so…removed.

He need do little at this stage but sit and
watch – and wait – and yet he exerted total control over the fate
of the one he watched. It occurred to him that he was, in a manner
of speaking, an assassin, albeit a passive one. He was part of a
team; he was taking orders; he was performing a specific function;
and, ultimately, there would be a death.

As the final moment approached, he felt his
heart beating faster.

Now the very final minutes – the victim
thrashed about wildly, limbs flailing, the face contorted by
unimaginable fear. Eyes pleading.

The observer quivered with a spasm of his
own. He checked his watch; the timing was extraordinary. And it
meant this wasn’t yet the right time for the final moments. Not
yet. Not today.

Instead, it was time to effect a
reversal.

The Brisbane Chief of Police, Fred Stanton,
had the lived-in face and knowing eyes of a career policeman who’d
seen it all during his thirty-four years on the Force.

‘You wanted to talk to me about this Mermaid
case?’ Stanton said as O’Malley seated himself in the spacious
office.

‘Yes. And thanks for seeing me on such short
notice, Fred.’

‘Well, I guess it’s true what they say, it’s
not what you know…’

Both men laughed. They had known each other
for more decades than they cared to admit.

Stanton gestured to the bulky file on the
corner of his desk. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got around to reviewing
the material you sent.’

‘I can fill in the gaps pretty quickly.’
O’Malley pulled the file toward him, opened it up and passed across
a picture of the reconstruction of the ‘Mermaid’s’ face. ‘Police
agencies internationally have had this for several days. Our
follow-up shows that no matches have been made anywhere.’

‘It’s rare, I admit, but sometimes we just
don’t ever learn their identities.’

‘But there are other cases now, Fred, almost
identical, in Northern Rocks and down on the mid New South Wales
coast.’

‘I’m aware of that…’

‘There are still more.’

Stanton stroked his chin. ‘Go on.’

‘I placed requests through Interpol and with
the FBI for case histories on any John or Jane Doe cases where ID
was never made…’

‘Okay - and?’

‘What I didn’t expect to find were cases of
exact
similarity.’ O’Malley passed across the reports
emailed by the FBI. ‘Two years ago the FBI took on these cases. Two
unidentifiable drowning victims washed ashore on beaches in
southern Florida, different ends of the coastline. And a year
earlier, a naked John Doe scooped up by a fishing trawler off the
Florida coastline.

‘Here and in the U.S, six in all, identities
untraceable, all young, all naked, confined to two specific
seaboards. There haven’t been any other reported cases anything
like these anywhere else in the world as far back as records exist.
This has gone beyond coincidence, Fred.’

‘Yes…’

‘And I believe there must be more.’

‘Your reason?’