Warrior in the Shadows (19 page)

3.2

Alfie Woodard and Jay Burrell sat out on the wooden deck that ringed Burrell's house on the beach in Cairns. The tropical sun lay heavy on the water; even in the shade it was in the high eighties and muggy. Both men wore oversized aloha shirts and baggy shorts that reached to their knees. Alfie's lower left leg was heavily bandaged.

Burrell pointed at Alfie's bandages and said, "That was a serious mistake."

"No arguing that, mate," Alfie said. "Balls up all round. Nothing to be done about it now."

"Your leg?"

"Better. The lad that came in after me, he was a serious sort. Professional. Didn't expect the likes of him coming in after me."

"It won't hurt for you to drop out of sight for a while. I assume you're going up to Laura?"

"Be the best thing for me to go bush for a while and that's what I need to do."

"I need to have a way to get hold of you if things happen."

Alfie laughed. "You still don't have it sorted, do you, mate? It's just like the bloody pop tune. Just call my name and I'll be there."

Burrell regarded him for a long moment, then shrugged. "I'll call and leave a message with your friend at the Laura bar. You'll check in there from time to time?"

"That'll work, mate. Me pal Peter will take notes."

"I know."

"Right then."

Alfie stood up and stretched, favoring his injured leg. A big heavily muscled white man in his early twenties came out the sliding-glass door behind the two men.

"Heya, mate," Alfie said to the man, who ignored him and said to Burrell, "You got something for me, boss?"

"Not yet, young Tim," Burrell said. "You'll have to wait your turn. Alfie here has everything sorted, so you won't be making any trips to the States soon."

"That's not what I heard," Tim said, still deliberately ignoring Alfie and speaking only to Burrell. "Heard it was a proper cock-up."

Alfie laughed out loud and said, "Where do you find these arse-holes, Jay? The local pub?"

Tim turned and flexed in Alfie's direction. "I'd mind yourself, blackie."

Alfie brushed past Tim to get into the house. "Blackie?" he said, laughing. "See you later, china plate."

"I hate that black bastard," Tim said.

"I wouldn't muck about with him," Burrell said. "Alfie's got a bit more blood on his hands than you. Don't let that Abo bush doctor bit fool you— he's as good as it gets."

"I wouldn't have made the mess he made."

"What's done is done. You'll get your chance." Burrell paused. "Did you go over the figures on the latest shipments?"

"Right, then."

"What's it look like?"

"The U.S. interdiction effort is focused on the south borders. Our operations in Aruba are under heavy surveillance and we've lost several shipments to the Coast Guard. I think the idea of moving the product way north and then into the States through Canada and down will be the best way to go. Minneapolis would have been a good place if it hadn't been so mucked up by your friend. We can bring product into the smaller uncontrolled airfields, disguise some shipments as small hunting charters. If we keep shipping it up and off-loading it in Canada and then taking it down, we can minimize our losses."

Burrell yawned and hid it behind one hand. "You're a quick study, Tim. Keep up the good. I'm going to check out the surf."

"Right, boss." Tim watched Burrell walk down to the beach, then went into the house. He stood at the front door and watched Alfie walk away toward town.

"Bloody bastard," Tim said softly. "I'll see to you one day."

* * *

Alfie walked up to the side of a hulking four-ton, six-wheeled all-terrain vehicle parked outside a grocery store. A logo of a mountain with an all-terrain vehicle superimposed was stenciled on the side, just above the words "Adventure Company." The Adventure Company ran a series of tours and four-wheel drive expeditions into the northernmost parts of Queensland and the Cape York Peninsula. The big truck made a weekly trip up to the Jowalbinna bush camp in the foothills of the Laura River country where Alfie came from. Catching a ride with the driver was the best way to get deep into the country and the driver stopped off in Laura, where Alfie lived in the hills outside the town limits.

Alfie thumped the side of the Oka truck and greeted the driver, a young, lean, and wiry white man whose cotton shirt and shorts hung on him like oversized flags, "We ready to go, mate?"

"Just a tick, mate. Then we'll go," the driver said. "You in a hurry to go bush, are you?"

"Just to get the hell out of Cairns."

"It's changed, hasn't it?"

"Not the place it used to be."

"You that old? You look younger."

"It's clean living, the proper diet, and enough beer, mate."

The two men laughed. Now that he was heading back to his country, Alfie's look had changed. He'd swapped out his motorcycle leathers for battered khaki shirt and pants, light boots and a bush hat. With his faded and frayed canvas carryall, he looked like any other Aboriginal on the streets of Cairns. Coming back required a change in his attitude, something he reflected in his posture, which drooped as he drew into himself. There was still plenty of prejudice against the Aborigines in town, some overt, most covert unless he wandered by one of the bars when a group of workingmen were drinking. Then Alfie slipped into a long familiar state as effortlessly as stepping into his pants in the morning, a state where the words and the looks slid off an invisible sphere he kept round himself. It was something he'd learned early on, and his experiments in puri-puri had taught him how to fine-tune the art of psychic self-defense. He visualized a sphere around himself and it was as though his hearing was turned down, and he held the power he possessed in check so as not to lash out at the ignorant around him. He just turned away inward from the external fray and let himself settle in the light trance of Dreamtime wandering and let his mind go where it would.

"Let's hit the frog and toad, mate," the driver said, bringing Alfie up out of his reverie. Alfie climbed into the back of the vehicle and the driver's assistant, a quiet young girl, got into the front passenger seat beside the driver. Alfie was grateful for the din and grind of the engine and the two whites' disinclination to speak. It gave him the opportunity to drop into a light trance and begin again the communion he felt with the ancestor spirits who guided him. The outer world seemed dimmer and dimmer as they drove through the outskirts of Cairns and followed the highway north to Port Douglas, where they picked up a small family doing the Jowalbinna tour, and continued on through Mossman and up the long highway to Laura.

When they picked up the family, Alfie moved to the back of the vehicle and became even quieter, smiling and nodding at the nervous American family's attempt to make conversation. It suited him to do so, for each mile north and closer to his home and his ancestral lands caused him to shed the layers of acculturation he wore like too many layers of clothes. When he was at home, it was as though he were several people. One part of him was the experienced special operator, who read the lines of the land like a schematic for a gunfight; another part was the young Aboriginal boy who'd wandered in these hills in a time he couldn't consciously remember; another was the dark puri-puri master who looked for the slanted escarpments where the magic images could be drawn, and yet another part, a part that rarely surfaced, was the quiet Alfie Woodard who enjoyed the sense of coming home. The role he played for Jay Burrell, that of the cocky Aussie who looked like a rock musician, that part disappeared when he went home. It was a mask he wore to hide his secret self away. The principle of multiple layers the SAS had taught him, to disguise real purpose within layer upon layer of deception, seemed so natural to him since he'd applied it to all the aspects of his life.

They drove along the winding highway that followed the coastline and then headed inland before they came to the dusty little town of Laura and its single long street dominated by the Quinkin Bar and Hotel. Alfie got out of the vehicle, nodding his thanks to the driver, hoisted his battered canvas carryall, and walked away. He stopped in the bar and nodded to the big, quiet white man behind the bar.

"G'day, Peter," Alfie said. "Got any mail for me?"

"Not a thing," Peter said.

"Thanks, then."

"Ta."

Alfie stepped out onto the porch. The sun blazed, a weight on his hat and shoulders. Alfie took off his shoes and stepped down into the dirt and wiggled his toes.

He was almost home.

He walked alongside the road for a while, enjoying the feel of dirt beneath his feet, then followed a dirt track that branched off from the main road. There were some manufactured homes where members of the Ang-Gnarra tribal group still lived. He passed small black children playing in the dust, and fat tired women who sat idly on the steps and watched him. Several of them called to their children when they saw him coming and took the children inside. There was one group of men he passed, a few elders and some younger men. He recognized several of them as Law Men who kept tabs on the younger men and punished them when necessary. He'd taken a spear in the leg from one of them himself when he'd come back here on leave and gotten himself good and drunk. It was an old punishment, but a good one. No more humbug out of him after that.

They all knew him for what he was, which was why no one spoke to him or greeted him after his periodic absences. They'd never mention it to a white man and they discussed it only among themselves. No one approached him for help with love magic or improvement spells, no one asked him to prognosticate for them, few of them dared to acknowledge him.

Sometimes Alfie wished they would.

It was a dark and lonely path he'd chosen, and here, in the place he most wished to be accepted, it was the one path that led him far away from everyone.

But what was he missing? Drunken camaraderie with other drunks? A fat and miserable wife, squalling children? He'd chosen a path to power and that was important to remember. He walked through the settlement and let their gazes beat on his dusty shirt like silent blows. He left the homes behind and, after another mile, the dirt track began to fade out as he climbed the hills, watching for snakes as he set his hardened feet carefully among the stones. He walked through a natural amphitheater, a strange circular place where the trees would not grow. There were many termite hills there, many of them the height of a man's chest. In the old times, a dead Aborigine would be put into the termite mounds until only his bones remained. Then the bones would be laid to rest in his ancestral home.

Alfie had put his mentor Ralph into one, then collected his bones at the end of the dry season and kept them in the cave he called home. This was his songline, his walkabout path, and he came this way every time he returned from a job. The walking, the sun, the dust beneath his feet, the rough sandstone that ground beneath the calluses of his feet, they all seemed to wash something out of him, leaving him feeling free and clear.

Free and clear of everything but his ancestral spirit, the dangerous Anurra.

Alfie climbed the hills, following a game trail that might be over ten thousand years old, working his way through the boulders and fallen sandstone escarpments till he came to a bluff that seemed to rise directly out of the ground. He walked around to the far side of the bluff, where a narrow chimney gave the strong and flexible an avenue to lever oneself up the face of the bluff to an underhang. Alfie braced his back against the stone and worked his way up, pushing with his legs.

There was a natural cave there, sheltered from wind and rain, deep and dry, and it had been the home to the Ang-Gnarra shaman for tens of thousands of years.

It was where he lived. The shaman was home.

In one corner of the large frontal cave was the neat stack of bones of the man who'd made Alfie, Ralph the old shaman who'd been shunned by the other Aboriginals because of his explorations into the dark path of puri-puri, who died at the hand of his young apprentice as his own mentor had died at his hand.

The walls and ceiling of the cave were covered with images, some of them tens of thousands of years old; others as fresh as Alfie could make them. There were new symbols, symbols from the Dreamtime walkabout that Alfie made going out into the white man's world and making his way back, taking his pay in the white man's world, which gave him the total freedom and autonomy to do exactly as he wished to do in his world, the world of this cave.

He stripped himself naked and set his clothes and his satchel in a small narrow natural alcove. Then he stretched out on his back, the stone cool and rough against his back and naked buttocks as he stretched out to his full length and stared up at the ceiling, lit by the slanting sunlight from outside, as though he were staring up at the stars of a summer night.

3.3

Charley was unsteady on his feet in his apartment; the floor seemed to swell beneath him like the deck of a small boat on rough water. His head was muddled with fatigue, sorrow, and a raging hangover. But when Kativa came into the apartment, he drew himself up, bracing himself with his feet wide apart. She set down a paper bag with food in it on his coffee table, then came to him for a silent, long hug.

"Eat," she said.

Charley sat down and ate his sandwich in silence, carefully chewing each bite and forcing himself not to bolt his food down. Kativa sat on a kitchen chair, her knees pressed tight together, and hunched forward to rest her elbows on her knees. She said nothing while Charley ate. The silence grew thick till Charley set down the crust of his sandwich and said, "Thank you for the food."

"You're welcome. How are you doing now?"

"I need you to go to Australia with me."

"What?"

"I need you to go to Australia with me," Charley said in a measured voice. "I need your help."

"Help with what, Charley? I can't just take off and go to Australia. Why are you going? What are you going to do?"

"The man who has done all this, the man who killed my friend, he's in Australia."

"How do you know that?"

"I have friends in the business who keep track of men like this."

"Then you need to tell the authorities what you know and let them sort it out, that's what they do."

"Kativa, there is more to this than meets the eye. There's something strange going on, something you know about… all this stuff about the way Aborigines think about magic and the Laura bush country. I had a dream, a terrible dream this morning while I slept. It was like the dream you told me you'd had when you were in Australia, except that when I was dreaming it was like Bobby was talking to me. It was a place like you described to me, in a clearing with these mounds of clay, and you were there with me. I know this sounds insane, but I think it's a message to me: you and I are to go to Australia together and find this man."

"And what? Kill him? Turn him in to the police? Charley, this doesn't sound insane, it is insane."

"You told me about your dreams. You told me that the rules of every day don't apply to the Aborigines and their magic. You've felt it yourself, you said, and you told me about my own dreams. Kat, I'm tired beyond tired, but I know something as sure as I know anything, and that is the man who killed my friends is in Australia and somehow there's a connection between you and me and him. We are meant to do something about it."

"I can't be of any help," she said, standing and crossing her arms tightly across her chest. "I don't know anything about this sort of police work."

"What about the dreams, Kativa? What about those? You know the truth in those. I'm getting them now. I'm putting aside all my rules for living in this world so I can understand the rules this man lives by— and I'm getting it now. Will you help me?"

"I can't just go, I…"

"I need you to go with me," Charley said. He stood and turned her to face him, tilted her chin up. "You know the area, you know how it all works. The Laura bush country, that's where he is now. I need you to believe in me right now, I need you to believe in what you already know. For some reason we're all connected in this. You know the area and you'll know what to ask people. We can find this guy together."

"What will you do when you find him?"

"What needs to be done," Charley said in a flat, final voice.

Kativa shrugged off his hands and went to the window, her arms still tightly crossed on her chest, hugging herself fiercely.

"I'm frightened by this," she said. "I'm not like you. I'm sorry for your friends, but I can't just go off with you, chasing something from a dream."

"You know better than that, Kat. You've felt something happening as well. Don't deny it, you know it. You're part of this whether you like it or not. If I'm with you, I can protect you. But we have to follow him to end this. Do you believe your dreams will get any better if you stay here and pretend that there's nothing you can do?"

Charley looked at her back, at the ridge of tension in her shoulders, and he lowered his voice, not quite pleading. "I can't do this without you, Kativa. Please."

She lowered her head, chin to her chest, uncrossed her arms, and wiped her palms on her slacks.

"I'll need to tell them something, at the museum…" she said.

"Tell them you have a family emergency."

"I'll need to pack some things…"

"We'll go to your apartment."

* * *

Within two hours they were at the Northwest Airlines ticket counter, where Charley paid full fare coach for a round trip to Australia, nearly maxing out his credit card. They would fly from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, then connect onto Cairns, the gateway city to the Great Barrier Reef and the Laura bush country. It was a four-hour flight to Los Angeles, a two-hour layover, and then eighteen grueling hours on a 747 packed with pasty pale vacationers looking for sun and fun down under. They were unable to get seats beside each other because of their late booking, so they sat alone with their thoughts, and dozed, and turned with uneasy dreams.

They went quickly through Customs in Cairns since they only held carry-ons with a change of clothing and some toiletry essentials. Outside of Customs in the public area a big sunburned blond man in shorts, flip-flop sandals, and a ragged T-shirt held a sign that said CHARLES PAYNE.

"That would be me," Charley said to the big man, who held out his hand and said, "G'day, mate. I'm Fredo. Here to give you a lift to the hotel. You'll be wanting a washup and some shut-eye, eh?"

"Thanks, Fredo," Charley said. "This is Kativa Patel."

"G'day, Kativa," Fredo said. He pointed at their carry-ons. "Is this all your kit?"

"Yes," Charley said.

"Right then," Fredo said. "Let's hit the road."

They followed the big blond man out into the parking lot.

"I didn't know you had friends here," Kativa said.

"Friends of my friends are my friends," Charley said. He was slightly dizzy from jet lag and the sudden change from the chill of fall in Minneapolis to the blistering heat of the tropical summer sun down under.

They stopped before a battered four-wheel drive Toyota truck.

"You'll have to squeeze in, or she'll ride on your lap, mate," Fredo said. "I got to have room for the stick shift." They managed to all get into the cramped cab of the truck.

"I booked you in at the Radisson," Fredo said. "Nice American hotel right on the water. Nice view, decent enough place. You can walk right out the door and out onto the beach, go for a stroll and get some good tucker in the town."

"Thanks again, Fredo," Charley said. "You got something else for me?"

"Oi, mate, just a tick?" the blond man said. "Let's wait till we're away from the airport and the coppers here."

Fredo gunned the truck to life, leaving a blue-gray cloud of smoke behind him. He pulled away and drove for a few minutes on the exit road from the airport. He pulled over to the side of the road, carefully checking his mirrors.

"Here you are," he said, pulling an oily bundle from beneath the driver's seat. "Check it out, but keep it low, eh?"

Charley unfolded the bundle. Inside was a battered Browning High Power semiautomatic pistol and three magazines, two of the standard thirteen-round magazines that fit flush in the magazine well, and one of the extended twenty-round magazines that protruded from the butt of the pistol. Charley kept the weapon in his lap, his elbow squeezing Kativa over into Fredo's bulk. Charley quickly stripped the pistol, examining the works and checking the firing pin, then reassembled the oily weapon and worked the action several times.

"Ammo?" Charley said.

"Ah, right. Kept that separate," Fredo said. "Here you are."

He handed Charley a small rag that tinkled and a plain small cardboard box. The cardboard box held 9mm full metal jacket NATO ball rounds and the small rag held ten Winchester Silvertip hollow points.

"Best I can do at short notice, mate," Fredo said. "The shooter's worn but it works just fine. Feeds ball no problem and it feeds those Silvertips just the same. Goes right to point of aim at seven yards and fifteen, so if you're doing your job it'll do. Don't get caught with it. It's cold and won't come back to me, but you will be in for a long cooling."

"I got that. Thanks, Fredo," Charley said.

"Look in the glove box there," Fredo said, pulling the truck back onto the road. "That manila folder? That's the other stuff you'll want."

"I appreciate it," Charley said, slipping the folder into his carry-on bag.

"No worries, mate. All part of the service."

They drove in silence for a time, then Fredo pulled up in front of a big hotel and stopped short of the entrance. He turned off the truck, then handed the keys to Charley.

"You can drive a manual, right?" he said.

"Sure can," Charley said. "Everything okay on the truck? Anything I need to know?"

The big man scratched at his face and said, "Check the oil once in a while, feed her good gas, she'll take care of you. You'll need it if you're going bush. There's spares in the bed and toolbox, complete set of tools. There's a false bottom in the toolbox and a twelve-gauge shotgun with a box of 00 buckshot in there. That's legal, but barely. You won't run into any problems if you've got it handy in the bush, but keep it low around here."

"I'll do that, Fredo."

"My number's in the folder," Fredo said. He got out of the truck. "Cheers, mate, miss. See you."

Fredo lumbered off, his hands buried in his pockets as though he were only out for a stroll. Kativa watched him go and said, "Who is that man? And why the gun?"

"He's a friend of a friend, Kat, like I said. And the gun… I need to be able to defend us if we run into this guy."

Kativa shook her head and combed her fingers through her hair. "I can't make any sense of this," she said. "I'm too tired, I need to sleep."

"We'll take care of that," Charley said. He reinserted the ignition key and started the truck and drove into the self-park garage beside the hotel. They took their bags and walked through the garage into the hotel lobby, decorated in a faux tropical motif complete with a trickling stream and artificial trees holding a variety of stuffed birds. After they checked in, Kativa led the way straight to the room without saying another word. She ignored Charley while she stripped down and went into the shower.

While she was in the bathroom, Charley flipped through the manila folder Fredo had left with him. Fatigue weighed heavy on him and he fought the droop of his eyelids. He pulled out a thin sheet of onion-skin typing paper and read the short note:

This is who we're looking for. We've been looking for him for the same reasons. We're interested in what you find. I know you're not on board, but consider it favors in the favor bank. You can call us for a bailout and we'll take care of the sweeping after. Try to keep things clean and hand it off to us. The other guy is his boss. We'd like to have a long chat with him as well.

See you when you get back. Good hunting.

T.

Charley pulled out the first of two 8x10 photographs. This one was grainy black and white, but despite the slight blurring there was no mistaking the face: this was the man who had been standing over Bobby Lee's body. At the bottom of the photograph was written "Alfred 'Alfie' Woodard." The shot was of a man, dressed in a black leather motorcycle jacket and dark pants, coming out of a storefront. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail and his face partially obscured by sunglasses. But the face was the face in the image Charley pulled up effortlessly from his photographer's memory.

The other photograph was of a handsome, sunburned man, bare-chested and dressed in baggy surfer's shorts and holding a short surf-board. At the bottom of that photograph was the name Jay Burrell and a local Cairns address. Charley studied the man's face and memorized the round, smooth face that was younger than the eyes. Jay Burrell. He'd need to get a street map, get oriented, and then pay a visit to Mr. Burrell.

Behind him, Kativa came out of the shower, wrapped in a long towel.

"It's free," she said. She slipped beneath the covers in the bed and turned her back to him.

Charley looked at her reflection in the mirror, then slid the photographs back into the envelope. He undressed quietly, turning the lights down, then showered, letting the heavy beat of hot water wash some of his tiredness away. After, he slipped into the bed where Kativa slept heavily, and carefully wrapped himself around her, and slipped into a dreamless sleep.